Just A Nobody
by Random One-Shot
Summary: Riku, Organization XIII, and everything a night spent fighting your best friend's Nobody shouldn't lead to. COMPLETE! Now with 100th review bonus chapter.
1. Impulsive

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets into a bit more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I would share it with everyone else?_

---------

It is almost like Traverse Town.

He cannot see the area around him, but he can _feel _in a way that defies description. The place has the same perpetually black sky, the same neon lighted shops, the same asphalt paved streets. But where Traverse Town had been filled to bursting with refugees from the vanished worlds, this world is almost deathly hollow. The only inhabitants are those that creep along the shadows, invisible except for their too bright yellow eyes, the Nobodies who had somehow managed to retain their minds, Riku himself and, of course, _him._

Riku is almost scared to face him.

Despite all of DiZ's speeches that a Nobody was just the shell of a person that got left behind after a heart had been torn out, Riku wonders in his hiding place if he had Sora's blue eyes, Sora's wild brown hair, Sora's unreal smile that was always too large for his face. Would this Nobody be an empty shell with his friend's face? Somehow, Riku simply cannot imagine anything of Sora being something short of _alive_. It…hurts, to think of Sora's Nobody like that. Even if Riku has never met him. Even if Riku will never know him.

Riku sits quietly on his perch above the street, hidden safely in darkness, like he always is. For all the ability of the Twilight within him to walk in both light and darkness, Riku has never really lost the feeling of security the shadows provide him. His dark coat and hood hide his silver hair, and he is free to spy out on the world around him. He does not have to move, he does not have to act, he simply _watches_.

- _And that is so unlike you, little Riku. Wouldn't you rather find him, before __**he**__ finds __**you**__? - _

_- _Be silent **- **

The voice laughs and fades away under Riku's pressure. In the weeks that run by between the voice's visits, Riku finds his running commentary for the past few hours disturbing. He hates being reminded that he will never again be truly alone his mind. When the voice reminds him that it is his own fault, Riku remembers that the only person he will ever hate more than the voice is himself.

_("You abandoned us Sora. You found new friends to replace the ones you lost, like we were nothing more than toys!" _

"_No! I never stopped looking for you Riku! Not even for a second!"_

_He can't stand those lying blue eyes anymore and he draws his sword. Idly, he wonders if it will hurt to kill his once-friend.)_

Safe.

Sora was safe and alive and he had not killed him and he never would. Kairi was home and she was safe and nobody would take her heart away again. He just had to save Sora, to give him back the last remaining piece of his being, and then he would wake up and when he did Riku would be there and they could together again and go to Kairi and _they'd be whole again -_

Movement.

A smallish figure in a black coat with the hood drawn up, hiding his face. He is unarmed and alone. Riku is suddenly intensely glad he can't see his face because the thought of fighting _anything_ that is visibly part of Sora would make him sick now and he knows it. Never mind the ribbon across his eyes, because there are some things even it couldn't hide. Riku crawls to the end of the balcony he is on, sensing his target and waiting for the smaller boy to pass underneath him.

It is foolish, impossible, and in all ways illogical, but Riku thinks the Nobody walks like Sora. His feet swing out too far and he almost dances the way his hips swing. Riku wonders why he is even wearing that heavy black coat when he is oh-so-obviously not suited for it. The humming of the fluorescent lights seems to dim and the quiet of the city that never drew breath went quieter still. Riku can hear his heart thundering as he jumps off the balcony and falls toward the Nobody, the hilt of his sword raised for one quick hit at the temple.

And clearly DiZ is wrong because the Nobody _does_ have something more of Sora in him then a discarded body. Only Sora has ever rolled away from his attacks like that and Riku can think of no one else who would have known he was coming. Sora has always known when Riku was trying to surprise him and it has always pissed Riku off. And then Riku has no more time to think because there is a flash of light and the Nobody is coming at him with _Sora's Keyblade._

Riku barely has time to block and then there is weight on his blade and he is straining against the smaller boy who is absurdly strong for his size. He wonders if the Nobody would recognize him if he took off his own hood. Could Sora's memories have such a great effect on his Nobody? Because, as Riku is forced to retreat and parry and block and duck, the Nobody is even _fighting_ like Sora and with just as much power. He uses more strength than Sora and is a little slower, but the tactics and the ability are the same. With a mixture of fear and embarrassment Riku notes, as he ducks beneath another hit that would have taken his head off, that he is losing almost a mere fifteen seconds after the fight first started.

Grunting as the flat side of the Keyblade smacks him in the ribs, Riku falls to the ground on one hand and lashes out with a leg. The Nobody skips back and out of attack range. Riku rolls to his feet and charges forward, mentally chanting that this is his only chance, and that the Nobody will never let his guard down again for Riku to get at him. The Nobody, as if sensing his thoughts, lifts the Keyblade and runs right at him. They meet in midair with metal screaming and sparks flying and then Riku is flying back and landing hard on his back. The Nobody lands on his feet and turns to face him.

Riku can't see the face, and he is getting more and more grateful for that by the second because it looks like he will have to get rough after all. But he can't hold back the question, because only the strongest hearts were supposed to get the Keyblade and Nobodies didn't have hearts.

'_But they have minds right? I can't be fighting a puppet and DiZ said they have free will. But he __**doesn't have a heart**__, so why does he have it, why, why, why, why…? _

"Why? Why do you have _his_ Keyblade?"

Riku doesn't know he has spoken the words until they leave his mouth. The Nobody looks (_ashamedly curiously_) at the sword in his hand and he turns violently back to Riku. Slashing his gloved hand through the air, the Nobody orders him to "Shut up!"

And then he is coming again, with violent intent written across every line of his body. The coat is meant to emphasis that, Riku realizes. Riku rolls out of the way in a hurry and barely avoids being cut in half. He staggers back on to his feet and brings his own sword up just in time to catch the Keyblade and strike it away from his stomach. Riku lifts his foot and kicks hard into the Nobody's shin. The Nobody yells and the Keyblade goes down. Riku swings the flat of his sword at the exposed being, but the Nobody jumps away and Riku misses _again._ It is becoming an unpleasant habit.

But unless his ears deceive him, the Nobody is breathing hard now, tiring quickly. Riku circles him slowly, feinting here and there, trying to find an opening. The Nobody always blocks, but his movements are slow and sloppy. Riku feels triumph and pity, because even if it will save his friend, he knows what it is like to be forced against your will.

There!

Riku takes the opening and a heartbeat later realizes that it was no opening it was a trap and he walked right into it _like always!_ The Keyblade flies up and the blunt tip smashes into his jaw, sending blood and saliva flying into the air as Riku falls to the ground for the second time that night, cursing in his mind. Riku can't move immediately and it comes back to haunt him as apparently the Nobody isn't quite done yet. A black silhouette floats across the heart shaped moon and the glittering silver of the Keyblade is aimed at Riku for the final blow.

The Nobody falls at him like an angel of death and Riku wonders if it would really be so bad to just let go.

- _You know he'll never wake up then, Riku -_

Riku hates that voice for making him want to live.

Riku bunches his legs and kicks up, catching the Nobody in the chest and knocking the Keyblade away when it is only a few inches from impaling him. The black-coated boy tumbles and comes up in a crouch, awkwardly positioned with both hands balancing him. He looks like Sora after falling from a coconut tree.

Riku suddenly hates him.

Furious, he is on his feet and the Nobody is on his feet and they are hammering at each other again, but this time Riku is not holding back and it is Riku who is pushing the other one back with every trick he knows, dirty or fair. The boy stumbles and staggers and weaves and ducks and tries to run foolishly because it leaves his back wide open and Riku was never one to pass up a good opportunity, though it has come back to take a good sized chunk out of him lately.

Riku mimics the Nobody's earlier attack and jumps high in to the air, the sharp edge of his jagged blade aimed at the retreating back. Part of him is screaming that _it will kill the Nobody_ and part (not of him) is laughing at the whole situation.

"_Roxas, down!"_

And yes, he has done something extremely foolish again.

There is nowhere to hide in the wide open air and the bar of fire catches him full in the back. He is knocked over the Nobody, who huddles on the street floor, and crashes hard into an alley nearby. As he stares dully at the trash can near his head, he realizes how utterly stupid it was to go after the Nobody after he had already tried to trick Riku once with a fake opening.

- _Foolish child _-

- Shut up damn you, I know -

Riku has just enough energy left to wonder why a world with no people in it needs trash cans and then he is no longer awake.

---------

_A thought occurred to me in American Government class as I did not listen to my teacher's droning voice. What if during Riku's first try at bringing Roxas back to DiZ he pulled some stupid Riku-ish stunt and got himself locked up by a bunch of gothic-coat wearing Nobodies? Well, here's the first part of the answer to that question. _

_Next time – Riku wakes up and decides he doesn't like Number III. _

Edited – February 8th, 2008.


	2. III

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets into a bit more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I would share it with everyone else?_

---------

Riku wakes up and wishes he hadn't.

For one, it is painfully obvious that he has royally fucked up yet again. One more tally on his screw up list. For another thing, his sword is nowhere in sight and two large Nobodies are staring at him not twenty feet away. They are the Dragoon types, which he has never had the misfortune of fighting. The way things are now, Riku hopes that the trend will continue. He has not yet found the trick of transporting one's self with the light and he doesn't feel quite up to calling out the Twilight or the darkness. If they decide to attack him, he will die very quickly.

However, he is not restrained. He can sit up and he does so, finding that someone has taken the trouble to heal the burn on his back, and the various scrapes and bruises he received from fighting the Nobody. While Riku is grateful for the lack of discomfort, he feels it would have been better if whoever it was that had caught him had simply ended his life. A corpse cannot talk.

Well, he thinks it cannot. With all the crazy stuff he has seen in the past year, Riku is not too sure of anything anymore.

Riku moves slowly back to the nearest wall, taking measures to show the Nobodies guarding him that he is no threat. The room he is trapped in is solid white everywhere, far too much like Castle Oblivion for his own state of mind. There are no windows, no benches, no shackles from the wall, and no way in or out except for a single doorway in the white wall across from him, but it is flanked by the Dragoons and several golden beams are glowing between the frame. Riku has a vague idea of what would happen to something if it tried to pass through those bars of light and doesn't continue the thought.

He leans against the wall and slides down to sit. His coat is gone and so is the ribbon around his eyes. He is left in the yellow, white, and blue outfit he wears under the coat. It is not nearly enough protection from the draft in the room and he wonders if his captors mean for him to freeze to death.

But even though the thought gives him a strange sort of relief, he knows it will not happen. You do not take the time to heal someone just to let them die in another way. Well, most of the time. There were some sick freaks out there who were more than a little touched in the head. Riku does not expect an act of vengeance for his attack on the Nobody either. If it does not have a heart, it cannot feel hate.

_("So they aren't really alive?" _

_DiZ shakes his head. "No Riku, they are very much alive. They simply don't have emotions. Nobodies are creatures of the mind and body, because that is all they have left. They are calculating, devious, and cunning, with Organization XIII the most so out of all of them. The members of that group can, will, and do fake emotions to keep true beings from realizing what they are, but they cannot really feel."_

_Riku stares at the diagram his partner of three months has given him of the basic Dusk anatomy and wonders how anything that didn't laugh or cry could call itself alive._

"_I think," Riku says slowly, "that it would be better to die.") _

Riku remembers and wonders what DiZ would do in this situation. The question does not help him and he drops his head onto his knees and tries to go back to sleep. One of the Dragoons shifts its weight and the armored plates on its body clank loudly. Riku starts and glances up quickly at his guards. They do not rush him. They do not attack him. They just stare.

Riku decides that sleeping is not an option right now.

---

Enough time passes for Riku to become more bored than scared, to sing two complete verses of '99 Bottles Of Beer', to count the number of spikes on each Dragoon and to wonder if maybe he has been forgotten, when someone finally comes to his prison. The bars between the doorframe vanish and the two Dragoon sentries turn and drift away from the door to give the newcomer some space. Lying on his back and trying to see if there are cracks in the ceiling, Riku looks over at the sound of footsteps and does not bother getting up.

A tall black-coated person enters, much bigger than the Nobody Riku fought earlier. The doorway is maybe ten feet tall and the newcomer fills more than half of it. His hood is up and Riku cannot see his face. Idly, the part of his mind that has forgotten what is going on wonders if all the members except for Zexion, Vexen and Lexaeus have facial deformities. It would explain the fetish for hoods. Then again, Riku himself wears one and thus is in no real position to judge.

The man -

'_Larxene was the only girl and she's about as dead as you can get, thank you very much there Sora.'_

- does not speak to him and only stops walking when he is inches away from Riku. Riku himself deeply hopes the man will not decide to kick him, because those heavy boots look painful. The black hood cocks at a faint angle, waiting for Riku to speak it seems. That is a surprise. Riku expected to be slammed against the wall and interrogated in a very not-nice fashion. Since Riku has no idea what the Nobody expects to hear, and because he has made enough mistakes already without telling them who and what he is, the teenager simply goes back to looking for cracks in the ceiling.

The Nobody waits.

Riku watches.

The Nobody breaks first.

"What exactly are you doing?" It asks. Riku feels there is no harm in being honest for that question.

"Looking for cracks," Riku answers.

"Why?" The Nobody asks.

"Because I'm bored. The Dragoons aren't very good for conversation," Riku says.

"Ah. Well, they were designed more for combat then thinking, you realize," The Nobody remarks.

"Yeah, the big lances kind of gave that away. So, what are you here for?" Riku asks, realizing too late that he has started the process. He wonders if he will ever stop being such an impulsive idiot.

"I believe that was my question. Superior was quite surprised when Number XIII and Number VIII dragged you here. Something about assassins jumping from the shadows and wearing one of our coats. Where did you get that by the way? They aren't exactly mass produced."

The Nobody says this all slowly, taking his time. Riku imagines that when this Nobody had his heart, he had been the sort of person who pinned live butterflies to corkboard with pins to see how long it took them to die.

Riku forces himself to think carefully. He has had enough of mistakes. He **cannot** have anymore. They won't just hurt him at this point. Riku looks back at his performance for the past few hours and decides to keep it as close to the truth as possible, because at the rate he is going he will get himself caught in a contradiction otherwise.

- _Ironic, considering how well you lie to yourself _-

- Do you **ever** shut up?! -

Normally, Riku doesn't show so much emotion to the Other inside him, but he has had as much as he can take from the damn voice.

"It was given to me," Riku says. The game starts and he focuses hard on the ceiling, ignoring the black void that stares at him apathetically.

"By whom?" The void asks.

"One of my teachers." Teacher, father, friend, partner, savior, and so much more.

'_DiZ, I'm trying my best here.'_

"Oh really? What was his name?" Mildly curious. This Nobody could fake emotions well.

_(DiZ shakes his head. "No Riku, they are very much alive. They simply don't have emotions. Nobodies are creatures of the mind and body, because that is all they have left. They are calculating, devious, and cunning, with Organization XIII the most so out of all of them. The members of that group can, will, and do fake emotions to keep true beings from realizing what they are, but they cannot really feel.")_

Oh. Right.

"It doesn't matter. He's no longer with me." Not dead, but far enough away so he might as well be. Truth, but selective truth. And Riku might as well be murdered already, for all the good DiZ can do for him now.

"Ah. My condolences. If XIII's words are anything to go by, you fight rather well. If this teacher was the one who taught you how, he was a great warrior himself then, hm?" Probing, picking, grasping.

'_What does he want?'_

"No. He never touched a weapon around me." More truth. DiZ had never needed one when he was attacked. There was a hurricane of red and then the Heartless were withering away.

"Interesting." Maybe. Maybe not. Damn it all, what was the Nobody getting out of this?

"….What is your name?" Riku asks, reasonably sure that he can make up a fake name for himself in response.

"Oh, I didn't introduce myself? How rude of me." He does not mean that, but if Riku did not know better, he would swear that he did.

The Nobody, who has been standing deathly still until now, bows politely at the recumbent boy and removes his hood as he straightens up. Black hair has been braided a dozen times and pulled back into one big ponytail, with a few loose braids hanging down. Sideburns frame his cheeks and jaw. They also make him look remarkably like a monkey. Riku bites on his tongue to stop the laughter, because he is not sure how far this fake politeness can be pushed.

"My name is Xaldin. I am the Number III of Organization XIII. And what is your name, young man?" Xaldin asks.

Riku finds the way he is being spoken to condescending. For a Nobody who isn't even ten years old to be calling him a young man? Granted he is physically bigger than Riku, but the words weren't 'little man'.

"I'm Ridsha." Always make an alias that begins the same way your real name does. It makes it easier to remember.

Xaldin smiles slightly and Riku feels his fear pushing its way free. "Well Ridsha, thank you for your time. I can only hope you continue to be polite until we get this mess sorted out."

'_You mean until you can decide whether I'm working alone or if my flaming sidekick of Doom™ is going to try and finish what I started.'_

Riku shrugs and tries very hard not to break eye contact with the ceiling. "I'll try, but I really can't promise anything."

Xaldin gives his own shrug. "Understandable. You are, after all, only human."

'_Prick.'_

Instead of continuing the bizarre farce, Xaldin turns and walks away. Finally shaken out of his gaze, Riku sits up on one elbow and looks after the Nobody's retreating back. There is no pain and there is no threatening. Xaldin turns when he exits the room and disappears, his footsteps echoing behind him. The bars light back to life seconds after and the Dragoons resume their places on either side of the door.

It is several seconds before Riku remembers to breathe.

He is still alive.

For better or for worse.

---------

_Well, another chapter up. Thanks be to you, my one reviewer. (Damn it all to hell, I can't say your actual name.) It's Sunday, I'm bored, and this chapter is the result of that._

_Next time – Riku is locked up and bored, thus beginning a time of self-reflection, with commentary from the voice in his head._

Edited – February 8th, 2008


	3. Oblivion

_Summary: __During his first attempt at catching Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected. _

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

---------

Riku has tried very hard over the past year to forget Castle Oblivion, but his current surroundings tear down his mental blockades with glee.

It comes back to him slowly, against his will, and then faster and faster until he can remember the number of stairs between levels easier than his own birthday, which he has all but forgotten entirely, because, really, how do you keep track of time with worlds that vary between four hour days and 1,000 year nights? The too-white walls and ceiling and floor, and the barely-there art built into niches in the walls, and always the darkness in his heart calling out to him. Light was white and white was so easily stainable.

Riku remembers waking from the darkness of _nowhere_ in to the blinding whiteness of _somewhere_ and all alone, with no Mickey in sight. The sudden panic at being alone again had scared him more deeply then anything else. When…_that creature_ had taken him over -

- _With your compliance I might add _-

- If I had known what you meant, I would have told you right where to shove your offer and we both know it -

- _Really? I seem to remember a distraught boy running to me, crying about how his best friend had beaten him with a toy that clearly deserved someone __**stronger**__, someone more __**powerful… **__-_

_- _I was an idiot and you were an asshole. Still are by the way -

- _Oh, and your intelligence has just __**skyrocketed**__ since then. Clearly there must be a cunning reason as why you __**let**__ yourself be captured and locked up in an enemy stronghold, because the __**great**__ and __**mighty **__**RIKU**__ would never have been defeated otherwise - _

_- _You've made your point, damn it -

- _I know, but where's the entertainment if I can't nettle you with it? -_

Breathing deeply, Riku pushes the voice down. If he listens to it any longer, he may do something foolish out of temper. It will not be the first time, either. Just thinking of the voice is enough to upset him on bad days. Riku only counts it as a good day when the voice is silent entirely and that is not looking too likely in the near future.

The voice makes him remember even more clearly than the room. The feeling of utter helplessness as his body was jerked like a puppet on strings to a master that was not himself. That had only lasted for a few minutes and then he had lost even the control of his senses. Riku does not enjoy remembering that time of void, even less than he likes remembering being locked in Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts had noise and cold and movement and feeling, but being shoved into the darkest pit of his own heart had left him with nothing but existence.

Riku could not measure time in that nothing. He did not know how long it took before he broke and began screaming, desperate to hear anything, to know that something still existed. He does remember crying when he realized he couldn't even hear himself. He is not sure how he knows that he cried, since he could neither feel tears or taste salt, but when he came back out after feeling the burning, piercing heat of Kingdom Hearts knocked the creature out of his throne in Riku's mind, Riku almost began crying again when he saw Sora standing there, battered and bleeding, but still alive.

And then the choice. To be a hero for once, a real hero and not a kid with a sword, and save others instead of just himself and his precious ones.

Riku closed the door on himself and tried not to scream.

Castle Oblivion had been his redemption. A hell of purity and sterile white with twisted mockeries of his memory thrown in-between the stairs. The first time had been hell, but reliving it all, every screw up and every betrayal, had nearly broken him. He had murdered in that endless castle, taken the life of a living being. The Heartless could never really count for him, no matter that they once people too. Lexaeus had looked horribly human and he had bled just like everyone else. Zexion was a manipulative freak, but if what DiZ had said was true, then he had died in a way no one should have to. By a copy of Riku, almost as well as if Riku had killed him himself.

A memory Sora that threw Riku's own words of bitter acidic hate back at him haunted Riku's dreams for months after. Every word he had said, every action he had taken, returned to him in kind by his friend. He was left immobile on the ground and reaching after the retreating backs of his friend, begging him in a little child's voice not to leave him alone again.

It was an eternity wading through his blackened heart, fighting enemies that were already dead and the never-ending white that greeted him when he emerged from the newest horror of his past. Only Mickey's occasional strained words, reaching out to him with the light, had kept him from giving up. Later on, the knowledge that Sora was in the castle bolstered his courage. But at the end, at the very end of that nightmare, when he had to face the creature in life-or-death combat, it had been nothing but his ragged and frayed nerves that had seen him through.

Grinning at that particular memory, Riku does something he rarely does and reaches out to the voice himself.

- Do you hear that you freak? I was shot to hell and halfway to collapsing when I kicked your ass -

- _Cute. Any other reasons as to why I should try another takeover of your pathetic body? -_

- It looks a hell of a lot better than yours ever did -

- _I'm inclined to disagree. Being mistaken for a girl at a distance was never high on my priority list -_

Snarling, Riku pushes the laughing spirit back down and focuses back on the past.

After the fight, he had staggered to the last level. Meeting Naminé and DiZ, choosing to keep his memories and the unwanted luggage that came with them, leaving Sora -

(_They had given him some privacy, for which he was extremely grateful. Even half dead, Riku still had enough pride to not want people seeing him cry._

_And he did. _

_On his knees and with his arms wrapped as far around the glass pod as they could go, Riku let everything out. He babbled whatever ran through his mind, mostly apologies for being an idiot and promises to be there when Sora woke up. His throat ached from the lack of water and the loss of moisture his tears brought on, but he did not stop. The wound in his heart had festered and this was his one chance to get it all out. _

_Wet marks fell in twin tracks down the glass from where saltwater had dripped off his cheeks. Peering through misty eyes and beyond the sound of his own racked sobbing, Riku thought Sora looked so damn peaceful that it was almost unfair_.)

- behind and feeling a chunk of his existence being torn loose, throbbing pain and all, to stay behind with him. All of it had passed in a fog after fighting the creature, but Riku could still remember Sora as he lay there, healed from his encounters with Organization XIII and looking like an overgrown child, which was exactly what he was.

Riku cannot help but wonder what Kairi and Sora both see in him that would make him worth so much suffering.

Thinking of Sora and Kairi now only brings him pain. It does sometimes, mostly when he wants it to bring him relief and joy. Growing up in a world where his parents saw him as just another number boost in the terrifyingly small population of Destiny Islands, his friends had **been** his world. Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie were a part of him as well, that was true, but they were their own trinity. They couldn't make him feel like Sora and Kairi did.

_**And he had almost lost them.**_

Tried to kill one with his own hands and nearly gotten the other trapped forever as a lifeless body. Thrown them away and focused all his attention on becoming more powerful, eating up whatever Maleficient tossed his way. What still stung him even now, as stupid and shallow as it was, was that she had never desired him for the ability he might have had as a fighter. He was just a handle on the Keyblade master in the beginning, and her own personal Keybearer later on, for the single hour he had had the thing.

Thank God for Sora and his relentless determination.

Or was it stupidity?

Naivety?

….Nope, that was a question for the sages.

Whatever it was that Sora had, most likely the very thing that drew the Keyblade to him in the first place, had allowed him to get through the lower areas of Hollow Bastion Castle with nothing but a wooden sword and an ally whose trustworthiness was... questionable, at best. Even if Beast did have a kind heart, Riku does not know how he would deal with traveling alongside a ten-foot tall _thing_ that had sharp teeth jutting out from the mouth.

Hades did not count as he was only seven feet tall, not counting the flame hair.

- _I still have wonderful dreams of taking a fire extinguisher to his head _-

- That was my idea first, plagiarist -

- _Oh, a dictionary word. Apparently DiZ is teaching you something beyond Nobodies and Heartless -_

- ….Why the hell am I even talking to you? -

- _Don't ask me. I believe you were the one who said you weren't an idiot anymore -_

Sitting in the white room and listening to the voice in his head that is not his own, Riku wonders if it is possible to muzzle someone who no longer has a body.

---------

_Yep, I made Ansem/Xehanort's heartless all sarcastic. I don't really see him as that kind of personality, but I figure being locked up in an angsty teen for a year will give someone a makeover._

_Er… Personality-over? _

…_Whatever. _

_Next Time – Riku meets the universe's only perky Nobody and, sadly, has to eat said Nobody's cooking. _

Edited February 8th, 2008.


	4. IX

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Riku is half asleep.

He cannot be sure, but he thinks he has been in the room for almost eleven hours. Enough time for him to get thirsty, sleepy, and develop a deep desire for a bathroom. With no water or bathroom in sight, Riku decides to settle the only desire he can. Granted, the cold floor is far from comfortable, but with his arms as a pillow it is bearable. Riku just wishes the air would heat up. Every visible inch of his skin has had goose bumps for the past dozen hours.

"Hello!"

Riku blinks and looks over at the doorway. Behind the light bars and the Dragoons (now lovingly named Peppy and Perky), is a teenager in a black coat with the hood down. He is bearing an expensive looking silver tray in his hands and it is loaded with food of every kind imaginable. The teenager himself grins and whistles. The bars vanish and the Nobodies step aside. The newcomer skips inside Riku's prison, the tray rattling in his hands. He stops a respectful distance away from Riku and sits down hard, almost dropping the tray in the process. Once he has his balance, he _does_ drop the tray. It lands noisily on the marble floor and makes Riku's ears ring. The stranger picks up one of the two mugs on the tray, fills it with steaming red liquid from a silver teapot, and offers it to Riku with a smile.

"Steamy raspberry tea?"

After three seconds of consideration Riku decides that, for all the raving lunatics and padded cells the media conjures, insanity is not quite that bad.

"Sure."

He takes the mug and feels the heat of it seep in to his cold hand. For a moment it is almost painful, but then it passes and he sighs happily. The happiness lasts until he takes a sip of the tea and chokes on the taste. It is as though there had been a handful of raspberries that were grown in rancid soil, put through a rusty blender, and then left to sit in the summer heat for a week before someone mixed it with water and heated it up.

The Nobody watches him gag and his smile fades. "Wow, that bad? I thought I'd gotten it right for once…." He frowns concernedly at Riku for another second and then laughs and rubs the back of his head.

"Well, my mistake. I'll just bring you water next time. I'm pretty sure I can't mess that up." He cheerfully watches Riku attempt to scrape his mouth clean with his bare nails and then, when the silver-haired boy is finished with the futile action, hands him a piece of buttered toast from the tray. Remembering the vile taste of the tea, Riku looks at the fried bread with a combination of hate and deep-seated suspicion.

'_Maybe they just decided to poison me.'_

The Nobody waves it under Riku's nose.

"Hey, it's okay. I've been living off toast for a while, mostly because Axel got mad and blew up the kitchen near my room and Xigbar hates sharing one with me so I have to cook really quick, so I give you my word that this is eatable. …Er, _edible_, that is," The Nobody finishes.

And now, after a moment of thinking, Riku recognizes this Nobody from the few pages of data DiZ had managed to glean about the black-coated ones. One of the newer members of the Organization, not one of the six that betrayed Ansem the Wise. Originally a great musician from a technology based world in the eastern quadrant, he was now Number IX of Organization XIII. Fought with a sitar and had mastery over the element of water. Still young enough to have memories of emotions and act on them unconsciously, unlike the lightning quick calculation of Xaldin. The Melodious Nocturne and master of the Dancer Nobodies (who Riku still couldn't bring himself to properly respect. They were _pink!_), this was Demyx.

Riku makes a mental note that, in the extremely unlikely event that he survives to return to DiZ, he will need to tack on an extra bit of information to that profile: 'can't cook for shit.'

However, Riku is hungry and knows that he should not count on someone who appears to be only halfway in reality to regularly bring him meals. He takes the toast and tells himself the green fuzzy stuff growing on the corner of the bread is a dried glob of apple-mint jelly. It doesn't help and Riku barely swallows without choking to death. When he finishes the toast, he finds himself holding a slice of half-cooked bacon in one hand and a withered yellow apple in the other. The bacon he politely puts back (he is not yet desperate enough to risk salmonella poisoning), but the apple still looks good, if a little old. He finishes that and once again Demyx thrust more food upon him.

Riku cannot remember how much he ate. What he does remember is receiving the startling revelation that Organization XIII is either a) much more in possession of certain emotions than possible for the average Nobody, i.e. love of sadism and cruel/unusual torture, or b) the lack of hearts had taken away any need to make their food anything more then edible, as without emotions they did not care if it tasted bad.

When he asks Demyx about it between gags from mistakenly eating something that hasn't fully kicked the bucket yet, the Nobody confirms it for him. "I still make the food I liked when I had my heart more often then other stuff, but it's just out of habit. The original six don't even bother with that anymore. You don't ever want to wander into the Superior's kitchen. Even the rats avoid it," Demyx says cheerfully.

Riku spits out something that may or may not be a bone fragment. "You guys have rats?"

Demyx nods. "Yeah, for a few years now. I think they got here when a gummi ship crashed and they were hitching a ride. Anyway, they started breeding and now they almost outnumber the Nobodies. Vexen used to catch them and use them in his experiments."

- Until he died anyway…. -

_- Huh. I always figured him for more of a gerbil man -_

- You can actually have a preference for rodent lab subjects? -

_- Certainly. Gerbils have a higher shock tolerance and more lung capacity then the average lab rat -­_

- ….Do I want to know how you know that? -

_- Probably not. It was a trial-and-error learning experience -_

"You okay there, Ridsha?"

Mercifully, Riku's good luck seems to be returning because he does not forget his alias. He pulls away from the conversation in his mind and focuses on the Nobody in front of him. Demyx actually looks a tad concerned. Riku decides it does not suit him.

"Don't make that face. You look weird," Riku says so.

Demyx frowns and sticks his tongue out at Riku. "Jerk. And here I was nice enough to bring you food from my own kitchen."

"You said this was from Xigbar's."

"….Well, I made it."

"And it made me gag. Multiple times."

"….Fine. I can't cook."

Satisfied that at least one other person is now sharing his downcast mood, however fake it might be for Demyx, Riku scoots away from the tray holding food that will either kill him quickly in the next five minutes or keep him alive and wishing for death. He settles his back against the wall and stares at Demyx. Demyx straightens up from his slouch and stares at Riku.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku waves his feet.

Demyx whistles 'Campton ladies'.

Riku wonders if Peppy needed a wax job.

Demyx wonders if his cooking skills were beyond help.

When both boys realize that they have stopped staring at each other, they both immediately resume the unofficial contest.

Riku stares.

Demyx stares.

Riku stares some more.

Demyx sta-

_- Will you please break this monotony?! -_

'_Small victories.'_

Riku blinks and slides down to lay on his back again. The ceiling is still flawless as far as he can see.

"Hey, what's your name anyway?" Riku asks. He already knows, but if he lets something slip about Demyx, at least he will not have to explain why he knows Number IX's name.

"Huh? Oh, it's Demyx. Number IX."

"Great. So, is there a bathroom around here or not?"

There are some things Riku is embarrassed to do, but asking one of his captors the location of the nearest john is not one of them.

----------

_Yeah, it's kind of short. But the Demyx part is out of the way and we now know what became of the poor gerbils that used to live in Hollow Bastion and why the rats sing songs about the death of Vexen._

_No, not really. _

_Next time – Riku reflects! …Again. _

_But don't worry. This time, he has muffins! _

Edited - February 8th, 2008.


	5. Muffins

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Riku looks at the pile of muffins Demyx has left him and wonders if he can use them as projectile weapons.

They are hard enough. He has already nearly chipped a tooth from trying to take a bite out of one. When he drops one, it lands on the floor with a hard clunking sound. If he does die, at least he can go down fighting. Sort of. Riku wonders if he will be remembered for being the first person to use baked goods as weapons. A roll of sourdough bread would have been better. It might even have served as a decent sword.

Riku wonders if he is losing his mind.

"Hey Peppy, do you know what the first signs of insanity are?"

The Dragoon does not answer.

- _I know _-

Riku cheerfully ignores the voice.

"They vary from person to person, but the most common one is almost always a small shift in mood when the situation does not merit such a change. For instance, when I first got here I was both scared and bored. Now I feel pretty good. And since I'm still trapped in a castle full of sociopaths with no means of escape in sight, mostly because the voice in my head will take over me if I try to tap into darkness while I'm still weak, the only logical explanation for my ease is this: I have finally lost my freaking mind."

Peppy waves his tail around. Riku interprets this as a sign to continue.

"I mean really, I have officially snapped. What with Kingdom Hearts and Castle Oblivion and that haunted mansion and those talking toys and a flying _elephant_ of all things, I'm amazed this hasn't happened sooner. I must have been pretty damn stubborn to last this long, but the game is finally over. I, silver-haired boy wonder extraordinaire, have finally lost the last vestiges of my reasonable mind."

Perky seems to lean forward a bit, perhaps entranced by this story or perhaps just stretching.

"And the funny thing is, I can't say I miss it. The stress of it all was pushing on my sane mind, so now that I'm insane I actually feel quite a bit better. Isn't that funny? It's fucking _hilarious_ to me."

- _You. Are. Talking. To. A. Mindless. Pincushion. With. A. Lance_ -

Riku smiles at the nagging irritation in the back of his skull.

"It is probably _his_ fault too, you know. Even when I ram him though the heart, so to speak, with my sword, he just has to stay around and shack up in my head. And let me tell you, this bastard is one lousy roommate. He whines, he complains, he nags, he doesn't pay rent, he criticizes every little thing I do, he thinks he's _so_ superior despite the fact that two teenagers kicked his ass, and even though he has a girlier hairstyle then me, he still calls me a fairy!"

- _You were adopted because your parents wanted your wings for fairy dust_ -

"Did I mention that he never shuts up? Everything I do, he's got a comment about it. Actually, he's kind of like an overprotective mother. A mother hen, unable to let go of her firstborn because she still wants-"

- _What I __**want**__ is to have you strapped naked to a lab table with the scalpel in my left hand and a bottle of burning, stinging iodine in my right_ –

- …. Naked? –

- _Clothes make a dissection messy_ –

Riku cannot shake the image of the voice in a surgeon get up, with the mask over his face and a sharp scalpel in his hand, bent over a nude Riku and in full view of something Riku would very much rather keep to himself.

- _Oh, like I haven't seen it before. I don't stay outside when you're taking a shower, remember? _–

- Pervert -

- _I'm bigger you know_ –

- A delusional pervert. How entertaining –

- _I doubt you've ever even done more then kiss someone, if even that. Tell me __**virgin**__, who took your first kiss? The redhead or the Keyblade master?_ –

- That is none of your business, voyeur –

- _Oh but it is. We share this body now after all. And when you meet up with your two precious ones again, I have to know whom I should kill first_ –

Riku has forcefully pushed the voice down many times lately. Usually, it is simply easier to let him rant and ignore the lot of it. But this is one of the subjects Riku cannot listen too. The voice is annoying, cruel, cutting, sarcastic, stinging, and a pain in the ass every second of every day, but since the first battle for control soon after Castle Oblivion when it learned that Riku could and would push it back into the bleak void of his heart, it has more or less stuck to being a simple thorn. Unpleasant, but bearable.

But every now and then, it would forget that it was not the master of the flesh it was housed in. And it would dig at Riku, bringing up old wounds and creating fresh ones with its words. Words of vengeance and fire, screaming and pain. It was first beaten by Sora, but Riku is now its pet project and, thus, the target of its wrath.

- _I bet it was the Keyblade master. Yes, the two of you always did seem a little closer than normal for friends. I think when he wakes up, he'll come looking for you. And he will find you, make no mistake about that. He's quite persistent. And when you hug him, and cry with him, I will be there. And I will wait until you are near him and you are relaxed and then I will come and I will be on top of him, with your pretty hands around his pretty neck and don't you think his tears will be __**wonderful**_-

Riku has pushed the voice away many, _**many**_ times lately and he is tired.

But he has the strength for this.

He pushes, shoving against the presence with all his might and sending it back down, screaming and howling, to the blackness of his heart where he can no longer hear it. But he knows it is still there, like always, and he suddenly feels very old. Blinking tiredly up at the ceiling from where he has lain on the floor for hours, Riku wonders when he will see Sora again and if he really will be able to keep himself from hurting his friend when that happens. He knows he is strong, but all it would take is a single second.

It scares him.

Reaching blindly for a muffin, Riku brings it to his mouth and starts sucking on the hard pastry to soften it up with his saliva.

'I'll beat myself to death with Demyx's cooking before I hurt Sora again. I'm just not gonna let it happen again. Never.'

He doesn't quite convince himself.

----------

_Yeah, it has been a while. Live with it._

_Next time – Riku discovers just how much fun it is to be locked in a room with an angry pyromaniac._

Edited – February 8th, 2008.


	6. VIII

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Riku is sleeping peacefully until the booted foot slams hard into his exposed ribcage.

Riku is sent sliding across the polished white floor to slam against the wall. He curls around himself and coughs. He thinks that at least two of his ribs have been cracked slightly. Heavy, angry footsteps chase after him and Riku smells burning ozone. A fist curls around the back of his shirt and he is lifted up to be thrown sprawling across the floor in the middle of the room.

"_Bastard!"_

The word is spoken with such hate and loathing that Riku, his face pressed against the cold floor, flinches. Then there is a roaring sound and the burning smell grows stronger. Riku has been hit by fire spells in the past and his battle-trained body instinctively sends him jumping into a roll. Painful heat washes over him as the crimson flower of death crashes where he was a heartbeat before. Riku comes up crouching on his feet and he dances away again as another shot of fire screams towards him. He dodges to the right and curses himself for putting the wall closer.

Then for a wild moment he thinks another fireball has been aimed at him only to numbly recognize that it is in fact a head of blood toned hair hurtling towards him. Still stumbling from his previous movement, Riku can only swing up his hands and push the oncoming fist away from his head as the rest of his attacker crashes hard into Riku's chest, sending them both to the floor.

They have not yet stopped moving when two hands wrap tightly around Riku's throat and bash his head against the floor. And again. And again. Riku's mind is filled with humming chimes and the sensation of just coming off a two-hour Tilt-A-Whirl ride. His assailant does not continue the attack.

"You tried to take him away from me."

There is malice and red wrath in that simple sentence. A desire to peel away Riku's skin and carefully, leisurely scorch away what is beneath. Riku's neck is still being crushed and he can do no more then try to buck off the man straddling him. But the man, and through Riku's tear blurred vision he sees wild hair that puts a rose to shame and green eyes that are focused on him like hawk eyes during the kill, has both his knees to the ground and is pressing hard against Riku with all his weight to crush the life out of him.

"He makes me feel like I have my heart. He makes me feel like life isn't just a period of time before death. _You tried to take him away from me!_"

(_"Hey, DiZ?"_

_The man in red looks away from his kill and turns to his young partner, who watches the remains of a Berserker fade away. "Yes Riku?" _

"_Are you __**sure**__ a Nobody can't feel anything? Anything at all?" _

"_Of course they can't. No heart, remember?"_)

Riku brings his hands up and grabs the redhead's wrists, pulling at them as hard as he can. Whatever slight pains he has leftover from the fight with the Nobody in the city are washed away with adrenaline. But the black-coated Nobody with him now is not so easily stopped. His hands simply squeeze harder and, when he feels Riku's legs thrashing behind him, his snarl becomes a feral grin.

"I'm going to kill you now _Riiiiikuuuuu_. I'm going to strangle you and burn you and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it, because _you tried. To take. __**Him. Away. From. ME!**_"

The last bit is screamed loud enough to echo back in the confined space. Even in his present state, Riku notices every little thing the Organization member is saying. They know who he is. Probably have known it from the beginning. Riku wonders why they let him keep the name Ridsha, but cannot bring himself to properly care at the moment.

- _Genius, you're sort of dying. Care to do something about it?_ –

- I'm open to suggestions –

- _Darkness_ -

- Except that –

Even when a crazed shell of a being is murdering him slowly, Riku fears the voice gaining control more then his own death.

- _Oh yes, and __**I'm**__ the crazy one_ –

Riku wishes to give a properly snarky comment in kind, but the sudden igniting of his shirt stops all thoughts of pride. Searing heat cuts at his chest and his mouth opens into a soundless scream. His body reacts before his mind. Unable to throw the bigger being off of him, his right leg swings up at a painful angle and hooks around the fire user's neck. Riku pulls the Nobody back and off his chest.

Now free, Riku sits up and yanks his shirt off. It lands in a flaming pile some feet away. Riku realizes he is screaming. The frigid air of the room wraps around his chest and brings a painful sort of relief. His skin has been blackened in some places and turned cherry red in others. Riku smells himself cooking.

Motion in front of him and the Nobody is back on his feet. Riku tries to stand, but the movement sends wires of lightning through his chest. He falls to his back and the pain intensifies along with his shrieks. The Nobody is back on top of him and his gloved hand slams hard into Riku's seared stomach. Riku's screaming is cut off as the air leaves his lungs, but the agony sends white flashes across his eyes.

The Nobody wraps his free hand around Riku's throat again and holds him down. The other fist crashes hard into Riku's stomach, his chest, his side, anywhere it can reach, but always on the burned areas. With his scorched flesh pressing against the cold floor beneath him and being hit by the redhead on top of him, Riku feels his head spinning.

_Thwack!_

'_Hurtssomuchstopitplease-'_

- _You know he won't stop_ –

_Thwack!_

'-_burningburningburninggethimoffgethimoffI'mhurting_-' 

- _Not unless you do something quickly_ –

Thwack! 

'_-painpainpainI'vehadenoughofpainwhenwillitend-'_

- _Not unless you do something to __**make**__ him stop_ –

Thwack! 

'_-Idon'twanttofightanymore-'_

- _Liar_ –

Thwack! 

'_-I'msotiredofitall-'_

- _You never get tired of it_ –

Thwack! 

'_-SoraKairiDiZMickey-'_

- _Can't help you here_ –

Thwack! 

'_-ImissthemImissthemImissthem-'_

- _It's just you _-

Thwack! 

'_-I'msolonely__**I'malone**__-'_

- _And me_ –

He has stopped punching Riku. His free hand is held in the air and a burst of fire surrounds it. Riku tenses and fears another burn to his body. But a white steel chakram, razor edged with sharp points, appears in the Nobody's hand and he brings it down swiftly across Riku's crisp chest, cutting a deep line from the left shoulder to the right ribs. With his lungs still empty from the pummeling, Riku cannot scream.

The Nobody swings his arm back and cuts another line from Riku's right shoulder down to the left side. Blood rushes up from the X-shaped wound and leaks out. Riku grabs feebly at the arm holding him down, but his efforts only make the other being grin. The light that is always present, though Riku can never find the source, glints off the sharp edge of the chakram as it rushes down towards his face. For the briefest second, Riku can see himself in the reflection.

His eyes are bulging, his face is bleeding from being thrown and turning blue from lack of air, his hair is messed, and his teeth are bared in a locked snarl of fear and hate.

He is a beast.

And when the darkness finally bursts free from him not a moment later, he hears the living symbol of all he despises howling with laughter in his heart.

----------

_The next chapter will be longer then 1,500 words. I promise._

_Next time – With Axel effectively mauled, Riku takes his chances at an escape attempt. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	7. Blood

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

**It** is beside him.

"Long time no see."

There is blackness all around and it is radiating off **it** especially. How **it** can be so clear when there is no light is a question Riku has never cared to find the answer too. He worries the answer might reflect something new about himself.

"What? No snappy remarks? Where did that wit of yours run off to, Riku?"

**It** grins and walks towards him. Riku wants to run. He wants to get away so badly, but he cannot. Because then** it** would be controlling him again.

"It took you long enough. Stupid boy, I was starting to think you'd actually let that Nobody kill you."

The words are condescending, arrogant, and prideful. _'You idiotic little worm,'_ they say. _'Who are you to endanger our body?'_

Riku is done listening to **it**.

They meet hard, two bodies that are not really there, crashing against each other and falling to a floor that will never be seen. Riku is beneath **it** and his hands are pushing up at the chest with the Heartless symbol branded onto it. Strong, dark hands sift through his silver hair and grab the strands, pulling his head sharply to the side. Intense pain shoots through Riku's scalp and neck, but he does not withdraw. Instead, his own hands reach up and grab **it's** silver hair, much longer and (dare he say it) _girlier_ than his will ever be. Riku does not twist or drag like **it** does. He simple rips out two massive handfuls of argent threads.

**It** screams piercingly and –

-The Nobody is beneath him, screaming. Smoke that is not smoke but darkness from _him_ is leaking from Riku's body. He has a chakram in his left hand and is pushing it through skin and muscle and bone and blood and a dozen other things holding the Nobody's arm together but not well enough because _he will get rid of that arm damn it_-

-Riku is on his back and **its** teeth are biting through his neck to the major vein beneath. Riku still holds bloody scalp in his fingers. He shakes them off as he reaches above him to slam both sets of knuckles into the creature's head. Riku hopes he hit the torn sides. Clearly, he has hit _something_ important because the gnawing teeth leave and he can shove the heavier body off his stomach. They are both on their feet in the dark and Riku charges first.

His kick scores hard in **its **stomach and **it** staggers away. Riku charges again and jumps at **it**, bringing them both down again. Riku sits on **its** stomach, with his knees bracing him on either side and he punches the snarling face of his nightmares. Blood flies and Riku thinks he feels something give in the jaw. He swings the other hand to make sure. Yes, a front tooth has been knocked loose.

Riku gets in another right hook before **its** arms check his progress. His left arm is grabbed and a knuckled fist smashes into his nose. Riku's head rocks back and his grip on the figurative 'floor' beneath them is loosened. **It** sits up with Riku on **its** lap and pulls him close. The grip on his left wrist tightens painfully and the arm wrapping around his back is the same. Riku cannot breathe. Logically, he knows he should not have to breathe in this place, but it still hurts. Riku can feel his ribs shifting under the pressure.

Riku bangs his right fist against **its** back but **it** just laughs in his ear. His legs aren't in a position to help him. All Riku has a clear shot at is….

'_That might actually work.'_

Riku has learned over and over again that there is no such thing as a fair fight. That, combined with the fact that his opponent has at one time been his possessor, rids Riku of any guilt.

And he bites down on **its** ear.

**It** howls again and pushes Riku away, hard. Riku flies back, but lands on his feet. He looks up in time to see **it** coming at him again with a demonic expression of murderous rage on **its** face. Riku jumps up and up and up. There is no gravity here unless he wants it and right now he does not want it. **It **soars after him Riku counts to five and then slams on his brakes. **It** doesn't react fast enough and Riku stiffens his legs as **it** crashes into them at full speed.

**It** falls back down and-

-Riku falls down hard on the screaming being's chest, trying to drive the wind out of the Nobody's lungs. He has to stop the screaming. The whole castle will be down on him soon if he doesn't. The redhead is thrashing beneath him, blood as red as his hair splattered all around them. The coat is gone. It has been stripped away by a combination of Riku and the chakram, and the Nobody's desperate attempts at keeping his attacker away with fire. The part of Riku that _is not_ Riku wonders if his victim had been such a crybaby before he lost his heart-

- and Riku falls after **it.** Riku's hands catch **its** shoulders and Riku spins **it** over his head before hurling **it** down again. Riku does not chase after **it **this time. Instead, he begins what will end the fight.

There is always light in the darkness. Without that light, there would be no darkness. As he played with the Twilight in his slow, stumbling schoolboy manner, Riku found that to be true no matter which world he went to. It was small, it was elusive, it was all but invisible, but it was _always_ there. Riku first started by simply searching for it in the dark, but he soon found another way. A much faster way, if more difficult.

Light and dark were connected, with the thin shade of Twilight to bind them. Rather than wander until he found a point where they connected naturally, Riku discovered, quite by accident, that it was possible to break _through_ the dark to the light on the other side of the spectrum.

And that is what he does now.

The reality around him groans and bends and _rips_ and **it** is flying back up at him again and **it **is screaming that horrible shrieking sound because **it** remembers this and **it** knows what happens next and **it **won't let him do this **it** won't let him win again **it** won't **it** won't –

"_**I won't let you push me away again boy!" **_

Riku looks down at his parasite.

"You aren't my master."

And let there be _light._

----------

Riku is aching when he wakes up.

The smells hit him first. Burned things and blood and sweat and piss. It reeks horribly. Riku breathes in through his mouth and sits up. The pain in his chest is gone. Looking down, he sees new pink skin where the old has been burned away. Of the two cuts across his chest, there are only thin white lines.

The darkness has saved him again it seems.

Riku hears a rattling sound. He turns to face it and sees-

(_"Number VIII. Appears to be 18 to 23 years old, though who can really tell with Nobodies. Fights with two chakrams and is a fire master. Appears to be the master of the Assassin Nobodies, but I haven't confirmed it yet. He's tricky and, true to his outward attitude, he can still be incised into a semblance of a rage.")_

-Axel choking on his own blood. The Nobody is a crimson mess. Blood is smeared all across the floor and thrown against the walls. It looks as though Axel's skin has been totally removed. His clothes are gone and the chakram is embedded into what is left of his stomach.

He is still staring at Riku.

Riku does not remember turning his head to vomit, but it happens. Hot bile surges up through his throat and splatters to the floor and onto Riku's hands where gore and skin and blood still leave their mark. Riku is crying and he does not care.

Riku stands up on shaking legs and totters to the open doorway. The Dragoons are gone and the bars are deactivated. Behind him, Axel's wretched breathing continues. Riku does not know how the Nobody is still alive. His mind shies away from the idea that, in the brief span of seconds where **it** and the darkness had control of him, **it** had deliberately left Axel alive.

For all he has seen and experienced and done himself, Riku cannot see the meaning or the drive behind such cruelty.

The day he does is the day he is no longer fit to breathe.

Swaying drunkenly Riku walks, then jogs, then runs as fast as his tired and battered body can take him. He passes through the doorway, leaving Axel's broken self behind him. He briefly considers trying to help the Nobody, but the realization of what he could do and where it would get him if he somehow did, stop that desire. Nobodies have no gratitude. Even if it is one of the most sickening things he has ever seen, it means one less enemy for him to risk coming against.

His footsteps echo back at him as Riku runs to his chance at escape.

----------

_1571 words. See, I keep my promises. _

_Most of the time._

_Next time__ – Riku gets outside, but is stopped by a really big claymore and the Luna Diviner who carries it._

Edited - February 9th, 2008.


	8. VII

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Riku hides behind a white pillar as another Nobody passes by. Thus far, he has not encountered a black coat and he is extremely grateful for it. Way To The Dawn is tricky to call out in the best of times and after such an internal struggle with light and dark, Riku knows he would never get it out in time. Riku can hide from the common Nobodies, but the ones who have retained themselves are not so easily fooled. His only chance in escape lies in stealth.

The Nobody is gone. Riku leaves his hiding place and runs as quietly as he can down the hall. The cold stings his bare chest and sends goose bumps up under his hair. Riku decides that, if he does get out of this, he will never complain about his coat again. It was ridiculously gothic, but it was also a gift from DiZ. More than that, _it was warm!_ Right now, Riku does not care if it has pink and blue kittens or lace trimming, so long as something appears that is warm. A sweater, a turtleneck, a cape, anything!

Not fire though. Riku has had enough of fire.

Fire is Axel and Axel is blood. Riku counts his breaths as he runs, rather than remember the scarlet mess he has left below him in the dungeon. The stray thought -of 'has he died by now?' drifts by and is quickly squashed. Whatever happens to Axel now is beyond Riku's control.

From the lower dungeons, that are so painfully white, Riku has gone up an unknown amount of floors to halls that are crystal and light and steel and marble. Eternity is below him when he crosses a bridge and the perpetually blackened sky takes in all the light when he passes through a balcony. The whole place is so beautiful and fragile looking that half the bridges Riku has crossed look like they will collapse under a mouse's weight. Yet, they hold his mass without swaying.

The World That Never Was is an impossibility. For every world overcome by the Heartless and lost, a fragment survives. The layers upon layers of empty shells gather in the darkness, dead husks of worlds that were, and form a place that never can be. Architecture and shops that are from a hundred different places meld and blend in the black and neon of the city. And looming over it all, brought to life by a shard of something Riku cannot imagine, is the spinning fortress of the Organization.

Riku has often wondered in the past how a floating castle can have a dungeon, but it is one of the many questions he never got around to asking DiZ. Perhaps they just had a large pantry and decided to put it to a different use.

Riku runs, runs, and runs through the glittering monster in the sky. The Nobodies are scarcer now and he does not hug the wall quite so much. The few scattered windows he finds show him getting closer in level with the city, but he still has no idea where an exit is. To finally see the sparkling lights of the city after nothing but ivory for at least a day and a night, and not be able to get to them, is quite frustrating.

Finally, he damns caution for quick results and breaks a window. No alarms sound, though that does not mean none have gone off. Riku knocks the razor sharp glass away from the sill and climbs up to hunch on the narrow ledge. Below him is nothing but darkness. If there is ground, he cannot see it. Riku tilts his gaze up and sees the city across a gulf of several hundred feet. Near enough to where he can make a small skip with the Twilight.

Pulling the middle power into himself is easier than calling his Keyblade, but still unpleasant given the circumstances. Riku relaxes in his crouch and feels within his own heart for the swirling mix of light and dark that has not yet dissipated from his internal conflict. Grabbing at them so soon after the scuffle is painful, but not unbearably so. This is actually the easy part.

The hard part is making them stick together. Riku does not have time to find the true Twilight within his heart and thus must make it himself. Light and dark can meld together, but trying to force it is akin to mixing water with oil. They meet, but they do not consummate. Riku must hold them both gently and let them swirl until they begin to naturally bleed into each other. It is a terribly slow process to someone on his time schedule.

Riku is a freak of nature, to put it simply. Mickey and DiZ have been wandering the worlds far longer than he, and even they admitted to never having seen something like him before. A person chose the light or they chose the dark. It was that simple. A person could use them both, as demonstrated by Mickey having a Keyblade from the realm of the dark while being absolutely _drenched_ in the power of light. But mixing the two powers to form something that was both and neither? It was unheard of. Riku had not even known what he was doing was supposed to be impossible until Mickey had seen him call the Twilight out and talked to him about it.

Mickey had heard Riku say he was going to walk the path of both sides, but he had just assumed that meant the boy would use the dark while staying in the light. Seeing the mouse look absolutely flabbergasted at learning what Riku could really do is a memory that Riku will always, always cherish.

The moment he feels the gray beginning to emerge, Riku grabs at it and pulls. The sensations of grease and scouring water, burning heat and freezing cold, strike him both at once and send his mind reeling. He has not let them blend fully. But it is too late now and Riku has what he needs. Letting the ill mix of power rush through his body, Riku funnels it all into his muscles and skeleton for strength. Then he stands and jumps away from the window as hard as he can.

His pale hair streams behind him like a banner and Riku whistles through the air. From the moment his feet leave the windowsill, he knows he has misjudged himself and he will not make the landing on a roof that he desired. It is rapidly looking more likely that he will smash straight into the side of a skyscraper. Given that he is currently traveling with enough velocity to cross a distance roughly a mile wide, this is not a good thing.

With silver Twilight, pitch darkness, and shining light trailing behind him like a comet's tail, Riku marks the spot he will most likely hit and goes with the first plan that reaches his mind. As he crosses the gulf between castle and city, Riku shoves freezing, biting darkness into his hands and, when he is deathly close to the very hard looking side of his target building, lifts his hands and catches hold the rough concrete side. In the tenth of a second he has before he becomes a bloody smear, Riku pushes himself sideways and hits the wall at a moving angle.

He slides across the wall and his side is scraped to the bone. The impact of his leap is lessened, but not stopped and the contact makes something within him snap. Riku's head hits the solid wall and he is knocked dizzy. Then he is off the wall and falling in the cold night to the ground by the edge of the void around the city. Instinct alone is what saves him. The darkness and the light have left with his collision, but the Twilight lingers still. He wraps it around himself like a shield and tries to turn so his head is somewhat protected.

He is still turning when he crashes into the ground and is removed from his senses.

----------

The rain wakes him.

Riku is cold and wet and nearly naked. His body is pain and nothing else. His mind is floating between sleep and wakefulness. In this state, Riku can feel the pain but it does not truly matter. He wants to stay where he is.

But a small memory of black fabric and danger pushes him away from rest. Opening his eyes slowly and blinking the dullness away from them, Riku remembers he will likely die if he does not move. He twitches a hand and the pain that did not concern him becomes his whole world. The rain, the cold, and the gritty asphalt pressing into his skin vanish with the agony taking their place. Riku breathes deeply and the icy air fills him, stealing away his warmth inside.

'_Is this what being born is like?' _

Riku does not move and forces his muscles to relax. The white flashing pain subsides and he is left with the dull red glow of warning. Do not move or it will be worse, it says. But the cold is seeping into Riku's bones and he cannot stop shivering. His pants and boxers have all but been stripped off of him from the collision with the building and the puddle forming around him is soaking into the fabric. Riku's blood mingles with the rain and takes away more of his precious heat as it drips out of him.

Riku does not know how long he has been unconscious. The thought of the Organization looking for him is what finally convinces him to risk moving himself. Riku stretches out and splits his lips over his teeth in a silent scream. His right arm is definitely dislocated at the shoulder and at least partially fractured in the ulna -

_(It is summer and Riku is bored. The first year of high school was the worst, they said. Whoever they were, they were right._ _Biology was boring. He'd fallen asleep twice now and it looked to be happening again soon. Damn heat. But really, why did he __**need**__ to know the name of part of his arm bone?) _

- and his left side is reminiscent of raw hamburger. Riku feels absurdly deep sympathy for slaughterhouse cows right now. The concrete has left him almost no skin where it touched. The impact against the building has quite literally pulverized the bones in his left arm, almost half his ribs, and when he slowly rolls over he can feel something grating in his left leg. His head throbs and Riku distantly remembers smacking it against the wall. He hopes nothing cracked in his skull. His back is on fire and he can only guess that landing on the asphalt scraped away skin there as well. His spine aches. Of his whole body, his right leg is the only part that doesn't scream at him for a double dose of Mega-Potion.

There is no aching in his stomach and he can breathe deeply enough, though it sends fire through his chest, so there is likely little to no damage in his organs. His skeleton has taken the brunt of the pain, as it is designed to do. Riku rolls his head to the side and stares through the rain and the dark. The building he has bounced off of is nearest to him and there is an open door not twenty feet from him. If Riku were capable of even crawling, this would be more welcoming. He needs one arm to work with his one leg and both are crippled. However….

Riku sucks in the night oxygen and rolls onto his dislocated shoulder. Fighting to stay conscious through the nauseating pain, he leans and shifts until _crack!_ His shoulder pops back into place. Almost immediately the pain in the area leaves and Riku rolls back onto his spine. While DiZ had always strongly advised against such first aid tactics, he did explain how they were done. Riku will likely need to repeat the procedure later, but for now it works fine.

Without giving himself another second of rest, Riku rolls to his right and props himself up on his elbow. The fracture in his arm sends wire thin signals of pain and his torso is a flaming mess, but Riku can now drag himself along the floor with one arm and leg. He leaves the rain and cold behind him and enters the shell of a building at a snail's pace. Dark crimson trails behind him, though Riku does not look back to see it. He knows he is bleeding and that he needs warmth and medical care or he will go into shock and most likely die.

Somehow, he cannot see Xaldin or Demyx offering him such help.

From other worlds he has seen, Riku thinks that this place could be a remnant of a high-class hotel or bank. Good carpet, which he is currently ruining, with dark leather furniture and expensive wood paneling on the walls. All that means nothing to Riku who has just glimpsed something like a miracle. One of the small chests that are scattered everywhere, for reasons he can only begin to guess at, is there by the front desk like it has been waiting for him. The cool blue neon glows in the dark and gives it outline. Riku shuffles like a maimed crab to the chest and breaks off the lock with his bare hand.

'_Finesse is for people with both arms.' _

Praying for a Mega-Potion or Mega-Elixer, Riku finds a single Hi-Potion nestled on the velvet cushion and looking very alone. Sighing, Riku grabs the bottle and bites the stopper off. Beggars cannot be choosers after all. The syrupy liquid slides down his throat and he feels the scrubbed clean feeling spreading through his body. The raw, bloody skin is grown over by healthy new skin, the ache in his fractured arm disappears, and the headache that has been steadily building vanishes. Riku still feels like something the cat dragged in, but the sensation of first being played with, chewed on, and tossed around like a toy has left.

Grunting, Riku sits up. His ribcage is still half destroyed, his leg has not healed more then partially, his left arm is in a state only described as 'wow….' and his back feels like the stage floor of a tap dancing competition, but he can move more freely than before. Riku reaches up and grabs the edge of the front desk. He pulls and wishes he had not. It seems the split in his arm has not fully healed yet. Moaning between his teeth, Riku scoots around until his right leg is beneath him and then pushes himself up while leaning against the desk for balance.

He can lean on his arm fine and does so while he gingerly tests his weight on his left leg. To say it simply, there is unpleasantness, but Riku believes that as long as he is careful he can walk. Taking a moment to look down, Riku is deeply glad that no one can see him right now. He reaches to where his remaining clothes have been pushed down to his knees and pulls them back up around his hips. The fabric is shredded in several places and it takes Riku a moment to get his pants into a position where the belt will hold them up. That done, Riku looks around the lobby, but does not see anything to be used for clothing or a weapon. Riku limps slowly out of the skyscraper and back into the rain.

Strangely, the Heartless are not being drawn to his presence. Riku has, in the past, used the darkness to hide himself from their senses, but he is not doing so now. He is injured, half tainted by the dark already, and strong hearted enough to wield a Keyblade. By all logic, they should be swarming him, and yet Riku cannot find a single one. It should make him feel relieved because he is in no condition to fight, but all it does is make him uneasier.

After living blindfolded for the better part of roughly six months, Riku's senses are wonderfully acute and he has come to trust them. The unease is danger, coming from something dangerous tracking him. It worsens when he steps into the plaza below the biggest tower in the black city. He feels eyes following him across the horribly exposed lot and it is all the worse because he cannot get away. His leg is broken and the spectrum inside him is too skewed for him to teleport away into a corridor of darkness.

He is a quarter of the way to another alley, and hysterically hoping he will be able to disappear back into the city's shadows, when the stalker speaks.

"Well, aren't you a sight."

Something in the voice makes his hair stand on end. Riku stops moving for the shadows and turns back to the noise. A moment before he had been the only person visible in the plaza, but now there is another man with him. Tall and cold, he has pale blue hair and gold eyes. A scar is cut across his face, and an overly massive and oddly built claymore is in his grip. He is leaning against it and looking at Riku the way a wolf looks at a rabbit.

"Riku, you are not in any condition to get away from me. This is the only warning you get: return with me to the Superior or I will drag you back to him," says the Nobody.

Riku sees the weapon. The Berserker Nobodies have attacked him with the like often enough. The Berserkers are tough, mean and horribly powerful. What then does that say about this man, who must be their master?

Riku does not move.

The man sighs and closes his eyes, shaking his head sadly. It seems as if he believes this to be a tragedy. But then he looks up, and his stance and grip shift. Riku sees the suddenly feral look in those beastly eyes, and every cell in his body screams at him that he should have just tucked his tail between his legs and gone peacefully when he had the chance. The Nobody does not think it is a tragedy, he thinks it is _funny._ He has known from the first glance at Riku that the battle between them will not be a battle at all.

Riku has already lost.

The claymore swings up and a torrent of wind rushes at the teenager. With a bum leg Riku cannot brace his feet to the ground and he is lifted up and pushed away. For one blissful moment there is no gravity. Then Riku hits the ground rolling on his ribs and the air is out of his lungs before he can even scream. He comes to a stop near one of the many empty shops lining the plaza and does not move. He can barely breathe.

'_I remember now. Saïx, the Luna Diviner. There are eight members of Organization XIII left and I get the fucking psychopath to haul me back from an escape attempt.' _

Riku sits up and gets one brief glimpse of a wild face above a black coat before Saïx's foot slams hard into his stomach. Something jettisons out of Riku's mouth - be it saliva, stomach acid or blood - and lands on the larger man's coat. Riku does not find out what it is as he flies and smashes back first through the glass window of the store behind him. Riku falls, rolls across the cold tiled floor, and then smashes against a shelf.

Glass pieces dig into Riku's skin but he does not try to pull them out. He is barely conscious. His fractured arm is on fire again and his chest is filled with nails. Whatever fight Riku may have had in him has now been beaten out of him.

There are footsteps on the sidewalk outside the shop, a brief pause, and then Saïx jumps through the window and lands in front of Riku. The glass crunches noisily under his booted feet. He stops in front of Riku and bends down to look into his eyes, the massive claymore sliding down across the floor. Riku's head is down, his chin touching his chest. Saïx gently tilts the boy's head up until their gazes meet. Saïx does not speak and he does not need to.

In his crazed eyes, Riku sees everything in the creature's empty shell of an existence. Saïx wanted this fight from the start. He is the wolf, the panther, the eagle, and Riku is the rabbit, the deer, the mouse. Saïx wants to hear him scream and see him bleed, but something is holding him back from doing so. It makes him furious.

The shockingly gentle touch leaves his chin, encircles his throat and Riku knows nothing else.

----------

_For those of you who are wondering, I __**can**__ give Riku a break but how would that make for a good story?_

_Next time – Broken in more ways then one, Riku's heart reaches out for the light and finds someone familiar. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	9. Kairi

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Riku drifts.

He can see and yet it is not _seeing_. He knows there is nothing around him but the spectrum and, as always, he is lodged in the middle. Neither warm nor cold, pleasant nor unpleasant, the everlasting gray of the Twilight wraps around him like a mother's embrace and takes all the memories away. There is no Sora and there is no Saïx. There is only Riku.

He sleeps.

----------

_drifting…._

_i'm…._

_drifting…._

…_am I dead…?_

----------

Riku floats.

He is in his mother's womb, surrounded by softness and warmth. He is in the dark city, surrounded by hard rock and frigid rain. He is in both at once. Child, man, child, man. Shifting, growing, aging, altering.

He cannot see himself.

----------

_no…._

_not dead…._

…_but where am I?_

----------

Riku is buried in white, buried in heat. It is light.

----------

_no_

----------

It is sand and the ocean is kissing his bare feet. Riku opens his eyes and the painful light cuts them. Riku blinks and the sun pulls back into the sky. It does not hurt him any more.

----------

…_sky…._

----------

"Riku."

He turns and sees –

----------

…_**sky**__…._

----------

- Sora standing next to him. Clown shoes and red shorts. No Keyblade. No Donald and Goofy. Riku knows this is wrong but cannot bring himself to care when -

----------

…_**sea**__…._

----------

- Kairi skips up behind Sora. Fourteen years old and beautiful already. Not a shell.

She giggles. "What are you doing here, sleepy head?"

Riku howls and lurches to his feet.

This is not real.

----------

…_**land**__…._

----------

The ground falls away beneath him and Riku sees his friends lunging for him with hands outstretched. God help him, he wants to grab them. Grab them tight and never let go. Riku falls away from the light and into the shadow.

----------

_the Twilight, where did the Twilight go?!_

----------

**It** is there, all around him. A vortex of insane hate and Riku is the only target. **It** grabs him and Riku feels tendrils of malice digging into him, trying to gain a hold in his heart. Riku cuts them away with his hands. Before **it** can attack again, Riku flies up to Sora with the sky blue eyes and Kairi with the hair of coral from the sea. Riku, stubborn Riku as immovable as the land, fears **it** more than the pain of seeing them again.

----------

_sky sea land you don't separate them __**not ever**_

----------

Riku is in the Twilight and it rejects him. He is light and dark, good and evil, hot and cold, **he cannot be both**

----------

_**WHO AM I?!**_

----------

Tearing him in half the pain in his heart traitor savior ally friend enemy brother kidnapper murderer Twilight was tearing dark behind and light in front

----------

_**WHERE AM I?!**_

----------

**It** behind him and coming fast, tearing through the Twilight and tainting it black in **its** wake the burning purifying killing light ahead **he had to choose one or the other**

----------

_**WHICH AM I?!**_

----------

"_**YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!" **_**It** howls. Claws reach for him.

The boy flees into the light.

**It** is burned trying to follow.

Shrieks of rage follow the boy as he runs deeper.

----------

…_. can't I just stay both?_

----------

White.

Everywhere.

Pure.

Sterile.

Blinding.

----------

_it hurts_

----------

Riku curls into himself with his knees to his forehead. The light is burning away the darkness inside him. The darkness that **is **him.

----------

_i can't go back there_

----------

Riku is done.

----------

_i can't stay here_

----------

Riku is broken.

----------

_i can't find the Twilight_

----------

He is dying inside.

----------

_i can't find __**me**_

----------

His heat beats quietly.

----------

_somebody help. somebody __**please**__ help_

----------

"Hey."

A hand touches his shoulder. Real. Solid.

Riku doesn't look at the owner.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

Female.

Young.

"I don't belong here," Riku says. It is the truth.

A smile in her words. Not happy. Sad. "I know. The way you are, it's kind of obvious."

Simple fact.

"Why are you here?" Riku asks.

"Someone called me. That's why."

Riku says nothing.

"Was it you?"

Silence.

"I don't know what's wrong, but I can…_feel_ that you are greatly conflicted. Am I wrong?"

Riku wonders why he hasn't faded away yet.

"This place is… I-is _burning_ at you. Like it wants to eat you. Why don't you leave?"

"I can't," Riku says.

"Why not?"

"Something worse is waiting for me back there."

"Then go someplace else."

"I can't find my place."

"Why not?"

"Because I have no place. Not anymore."

"Where's your home?"

"Cut in half."

"Can you fix it?"

"I'm trying."

"Do you miss it?"

----------

_sora kairi_

----------

"_**Yes."**_ Spoken with every bit of denied grief harbored up over a year. Riku cries.

Hands and arms, thin and pale, wrap around him and pull him tightly to a soft chest. Someone's head rests against his shoulder. She lets him weep.

"I feel you. I see what you are, the bad and the good. You hate the darkness, but you need it. You find no use for the light, but you want it. The balance you had was so delicate and now it's been torn away from you by your own heart."

Too many tears held back for far too long.

"You need to find your **true** balance, your real strength. You have to find **you. **The sadness in your heart is screaming at me and I know you feel it too. You hate yourself so much. Why?"

"_B-B-Because I __**hu-hurt them….**__"_

"How?"

"_T-T-Tried to_-"

"**Tried**"

"_Only me-messed up 'cause_-"

"You **tried** You did not finish what you set out to do. Are they alive?"

"Y-Yes…"

"Are they waiting for you?"

"….Yes."

"Then you have a place."

"…."

"You have a **home**."

"…."

"The people you love are waiting for _you_. You are waiting for _them_. Isn't being with them worth whatever it takes to find your balance again?"

"…."

"…."

"…Thank you."

"You are very welcome."

"…. I think I have to go now."

"Who are you?"

He is at peace. "I am Riku."

Twilight child, the traitor who returns, dark walker, light seeker, friend of two kings, islander, world traveler, Keyblade master

----------

_I am __**Riku.**_

----------

"…._ Familiar…._"

Riku knows. He turns and in the heartbeat he has before it all comes crashing down, he sees a girl –

- A _woman_ behind him with sea coral hair, ocean blue eyes, a tiny body, kissable lips and oh God, oh God, _**he knows**_

----------

Riku wakes and breathes.

"Oh, _Kairi…."_

----------

_Yeah, it had to happen. _

_Next time – Strapped naked to a lab table (déjà vu….) Riku is very uncomfortable with the one eyed dude staring at him. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	10. II

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

"Oh, _Kairi_."

"What's that now?"

Riku stares up at painfully bright lights, but this time he knows he is not dreaming. He is on something much too hard to be sand and Wakka's accent was nowhere near that deep. Also, the speaker did not add an obligatory 'man' to the end of his sentence.

"Hell_oooooooo_! You awake over there?"

Though the attitude is very familiar.

The light is suddenly blocked off by shoulders and a head. Riku recognizes this Organization member instantly from the eye patch. When he first saw the blurred photo DiZ had managed to get of Xigbar, Riku thought he looked like a pirate. Long black hair heavily shot through with gray and a prominent scar across his cheek were the next most noticeable things about the number II. He actually looked older then Vexen.

'_Which is right because Braig was the oldest.'_

Xigbar's one remaining eye bores into Riku's half closed green optics. Riku is still fixated on that eye patch when he feels a finger jam against his head.

"Yo. Are you alive there or do I have to get the Jaws of Life?" Xigbar asks.

Riku blinks a few times and slowly the sleepy feeling leaves him. "No, I'm not dead yet. Stop poking my head."

Xigbar's finger retracts and the body moves away from Riku's vision. The painfully bright lights stab into his retinas again and Riku scrunches his eyes shut tightly. He tries to lift a hand to shield his face, but something snags on his wrist. Riku pulls harder, with all his limbs this time, and though he stops when pain rears its ugly head, the same thing happens. Something is wrapped around them. Xigbar's voice comes from somewhere to the left.

"Yeah, we thought it'd be better if you couldn't move around since you pretty much turned Axel inside out. That was a real nasty piece of work by the way. How'd you do it?" Xigbar asks.

He sounds honestly interested and Riku cannot tell if it is genuine or a ploy to find out if Riku himself is still a threat. Feeling the way he does now, Riku thinks of himself as something remotely approaching dangerous and tries not to laugh. A fish out of water could kick his ass.

"I'd tell you, but that wouldn't be very secretive of me would it?" Riku says.

At this point being interrogated just doesn't seem like something they want him for. Riku cannot say why, but he feels that if they did not touch him during the first day and night that they had him, they never had any intention of doing so. It puts him off balance and he hates it.

His body is in better shape than before, but still hurting. His back aches fiercely, his left arm is nothing but a mass of pain, and the mother of all headaches is building up behind his eyes, but everything else seems fine. His left leg and right arm no longer feel broken and he can breathe without experiencing the sensation of shattered ribs moving freely within his chest. Also, the skin that was scraped off seems to have come back.

"Nope, it sure wouldn't. Besides, I doubt you could do it again. You look like shit. No offense," Xigbar says.

Riku can't really bring himself to argue. The reality of his situation is pretty fucking sad.

And Xigbar is poking him in the head again.

"When you first got here-"

Poke.

"-I though for sure Superior would just rip out your heart and make you one of us-"

Poke.

"-because that's what he did with everyone else, ya know? And you're a-"

Poke.

"-Keyblade master and darkness tainted to boot. There's no way in hell-"

Poke.

"-you wouldn't retain yourself when you changed. So imagine my surprise-"

Poke.

"-when he says that you're off limits. That was a little strange-"

Poke.

"-coming from him, you know? Any idea why he said that?"

Poke.

Riku dearly wishes to bite that finger off.

"No, I don't. And stop poking me!" Riku shouts.

This is not entirely true. Riku does not _know_ for sure, but he can guess. None of his ideas are pleasant though. The first worry that comes to him is that Xemnas knows Riku still carries Xemnas' Heartless inside him. There is nothing a Nobody wants more than their heart back, and the idea of Xemnas grabbing the foul thing and becoming Xehanort again, with darkness bursting out of him, is too horrifying to comprehend. They are bad enough as separate entities and Riku can only imagine what their insanity would accomplish if they were together again. In his last moments as Xehanort, he had destroyed Radiant Garden and sent its inhabitants to the darkness or drifting to different worlds.

'_Dear God, that is the man to whom I owe knowing Kairi….'_

The second one was far less likely, but still worrying. The idea of his friends being hurt because of him again would slowly drive Riku mad if he dwelt on it, so he does not. But they know who Riku is and he has to assume they know whom he is connected with. They would want Naminé back for sure. She is the Nobody of a Princess of the Heart, the Nobody to Kairi, who Sora was connected to. Not to mention the fact that she could rewrite a person's memories and make them a virtual slave.

Mickey is The King, capitals on both words, and another Keyblade master as well. A heart as strong as his would make for an interesting Nobody. Interesting, but not funny. The sight of a little mouse carrying a weapon bigger then himself ceased to make Riku laugh the first time he saw Mickey cleave a Heartless the size of a small mountain in two.

And DiZ….

Mr. Suspicious, questionable trustworthiness, and enigmatic know-it-all rolled into one red caped package. There was no word that Riku knew of to accurately portray his hatred of the Organization, Xemnas in particular. When Riku had not been working with Mickey to save worlds from the Heartless or researching hundreds of old lab journals with Naminé to try to find a way to speed Sora's recovery, he had been 'paying his rent', so to speak, by helping DiZ keep tabs on the Organization. Whenever they uncovered a plot of some kind, which happened far less often than Riku liked, DiZ would inevitably move to disrupt it. For the most part DiZ stayed in the background and Riku was the field agent, but there had been a few times where Riku, Mickey and DiZ had had to battle all together.

No. If they knew about him the Organization would not mind seeing DiZ disappear at all….

Poke.

"You spacin' out?"

'_Damn Xigbar and all ten of his precious fingers.'_

"I said _stop poking me!_" Riku screams. Battle wounds are one thing, but the sheer _annoyance_ of being jabbed in the head without any way to stop it is mind-boggling.

"Well quit acting all zonked out. I know for a fact that Ynlotryliumzium doesn't weaken a body that much," Xigbar says. Riku can hear the sneer in his voice.

'_Eenowhat?'_

Riku rolls his head to the side and slits his eyes open. When the light does not burn them, he widens his gaze. Xigbar is sitting in a chair a few feet away from him, two loaded projectile guns on his lap. Pressed against the wall behind him is a Nobody, a Sniper. Riku looks up as far as he can and finds his intuition confirmed when another pale creature floats across the ceiling. There is likely at least one more somewhere behind him.

Then Riku's mind finally catches up with the rest of his vision and he stares at the IV tube leading from a bag attached to a pole down to a needle stuck through his skin. Pale violet liquid is being filtered into his bloodstream.

"What the hell is that?!" Riku snarls. His body is _his_ damn it.

Xigbar sighs and rolls his head back to watch his creation float above them both. "Kids these days just don't listen. _Y-n-l-o-t-r-y-l-i-u-m-z-i-u-m._ It's a sedative that works better then morphine because it only dulls the body and it isn't addictive. Since I didn't like the idea of you being able to hop right off that table if you got loose, I stuck a needle in you and there we go."

Riku seethes.

'_This day can't get any worse! It isn't enough that Patchy the pirate has me tied down in his sights, surrounded by long range striking Nobodies, and once again in the enemy lair. Of course not. He has to __**drug**__ me too!'_

Xigbar watches his charge and sighs. "Man, you either haven't noticed yet or you are one cool bastard."

Riku's glare does not let up, but he lets a hint of curiosity through his expression. Xigbar claps a hand over his one remaining eye, mutters something about the idiocy of it all, and then points the hated leather sheathed finger at Riku.

Riku himself doesn't understand at first, but then he follows the motion back to his body. Under the high intensity jellyfish lamps overhead, Riku stares down at himself and sees….

A faintly scarred chest, still pale despite numerous attempts to tan….

Leather cuffs that are bolted to the sides of the table, buckled around his wrists and ankles ….

And nothing else.

Zip.

Nada.

Riku's ragged clothes have been completely removed, right down to his socks.

'_And my day has just gotten worse.'_

From the side, Xigbar's too perky voice floats in.

"So Riku, gotten any good tail lately?"

'_Merciful God, just kill me.'_

----------

_Merry Christmas to all, and to all a picture of Riku naked! _

_The fan girl in me drools. I'm heading away for Christmas Eve and morning, so see you later. May you all get lots of presents. _

_Next time – Light, dark, or in-between, everybody has room for some angst._

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	11. Wonder

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

When the light becomes too much to bear, Riku closes his eyes again and lets his imagination drift. Xigbar is still sitting off to the side, with the Snipers floating above and behind. After Riku nearly succeeded in removing his index finger via an enraged bite, he has left Riku alone.

Riku is dearly grateful for this, as the remarks about his sex life, or lack thereof, were getting old quickly.

However, as rude and annoying those words were, they were the only thing keeping Riku entertained. Now his mind is free to wander and, as he knows from past experience, that is not always a good thing.

He thinks of Kairi. The dream-vision-link-thing he went through not long ago brings a new, unfamiliar image of her to mind. The pretty, childishly cute memory of her Riku has carefully preserved for so long is clashing with the picture his heart is stamped with. A glimpse in a single instant, but he can remember it well. Her hair has grown longer, barely past her shoulders. The cherub cheeks have slimmed down to fine, delicate features. Her skin was still pale, something he had always found odd considering they lived on islands.

Riku has seen Hollow Bastion and now he knows why the sun always turned her pink and peeling.

Her legs and arms were slim. The hands were still tiny bird things that looked like one good swat would break them. Strangely, he cannot remember what she had been wearing, but he clearly remembers getting the impression that… _other things_ have become more pronounced as well.

'_How old would she be now? Fifteen or sixteen? At least fifteen….'_

Another unpleasant thought. Riku does not know Kairi's actual age. No one does. So, theoretically, she could be older then him. That thought bothers Riku. It is a silly thing, but then, so is the male ego.

Thinking of Kairi makes him hurt. He turns away from her and follows the flow of thoughts to Naminé. Kairi's inner blonde. God, he has been thinking it for so long and it still makes him giggle inside. The Nobody is patient, cheerful, artistic, helpful, and almost unbearably perky in the mornings.

Riku still has not figured out how she does it without the two cups of coffee everyone else requires.

Having her around almost makes him forget Kairi, because in almost every way the other girl _was_ Kairi. She nags at Riku to clean his room and then does it for him when he forgets, she listens to him when he just needs to ramble to someone, she is a spectator when he spars, and she mediates when he is in a bad mood. When he looks at her, Riku sees the exception to the rule. Despite how hard it is to believe that Organization XIII cannot truly feel anything, for the most part he does manage it by sheer repetition of the words.

But Naminé….

How can something that has no heart smile wide enough to split lips when Riku remembers to bring her new crayons when she runs out? Why would she laugh at him when he stutters out tongue twisters for another handful of prize candy if she did not truly find it funny? From Kairi being a Princess of Heart or from her heart being stored safely inside Sora for so long, or from something else entirely, Naminé _does not remember_ her previous existence as Kairi. She has no memories to base emotional reactions off of.

So, is it a connection to Kairi herself? Can Naminé feel through her Other's heart now that Kairi has it back? Or does she, in her own strange way, have something of a heart herself? Three parts observation, one part instruction, and a dash of chance. Does she feel? Does she _want_?

Riku sighs through his teeth. Kairi hurts, but Naminé is confusing. Too many emotions for him to name and know.

Mickey.

Now Mickey is all too easy to comprehend. When Riku was little his mother would tell him stories about the kind king who had a heart of gold and loved everyone as his child. Riku knows the truth now. Gold is solid and soft and heavy. What Mickey has is a heart of _light_. He fights to protect the worlds he has no obligation to defend. He has a Keyblade. He could simply seal up the keyhole of his own home and stay there to defend it and it alone. He would never have to fear for it or the people there. But he did not do that. He left his wife and friends behind to give others a chance at life. He dove into the darkness to get his Keyblade and, with it, the power to make a difference.

That, Riku thinks, is what gives him and Mickey such a rapport.

With one major difference, they strangely alike. Both left their worlds, both left their friends, both found the darkness, and both became stronger because of it. Mickey has seen the light and the dark, the same way Riku has. While he does not have the powers of both, he understands Riku some days when Riku does not understand himself.

Mickey does not fear the dark, but he does shun it.

And why should he not? Riku knows what lives there. He has exhibit A sharing a body with him. The sidelong glances Mickey gives Riku when the boy steps out of nowhere with black smoke clinging to him like a second skin are enough communication. Mickey trusts Riku not to fall again, but he cannot trust the edge Riku walks.

Riku doesn't understand why it is not the other way around.

The one major difference between him and the mouse is motive. Mickey left to defend. Riku left to explore. The islands were a cage to him. Even if the door was a black thing with grasping hands, he had leapt at it. Freedom was freedom, as far as he was concerned.

After that it was just one drop after another. Maleficent, the green bitch that she was, tied strings to his body when his back was turned and made him dance like a puppet. It had taken a new master to make them dig into his skin and finally make Riku see them. Sadly, there were still there. Marks from his misdeeds carved into his soul for **it** to cling to.

And they were appearing more often. Not strings, but chains. Heavy things that wrapped around his heart like weights with **it** being towed along by them. Riku has done terrible things. One cannot save a world without breaking a few people. And the men and women who stood in Riku's way, siding with the Heartless or Organization XIII, did not get up when he put them down.

That is Riku's one great sadness.

That when Sora wakes up and asks him what has happened so far, Riku will tell him what he has done and what must be done still.

Because Riku cannot destroy the Organization himself.

Nor with Mickey.

Or even with DiZ.

And the only way Riku will trust himself - not **it,** but _himself_ - around Sora will be if the other boy knows just what he is allied with. That way he will never underestimate Riku and if something happens – if something needs to be done - he will remember the others who stood against Riku and he will not hesitate again.

Because Riku loves his friends so much that it hurts and he will never see any of them harmed because of him again.

Even if it means that his best friend must be the one who ensures it.

----------

_Hey, if you think it sucks you're probably right. _

_Next Time – It's hard to place your bet for poker when you've already lost your pants._

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	12. X

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

A door opens somewhere beyond Riku's vision and footsteps echo through the cold, quiet room.

"Finally. Where the hell have you been?" Xigbar asks.

A new voice. Cultured. Riku thinks of DiZ.

"Terribly sorry. I'd gotten into a scuffle with some nasty knights of a something-or-other order near the end and had to stop in the infirmary when I got back. If it makes you feel any better, Superior says you have the rest of the day off."

Riku can hear Xigbar's smile. "Seriously? Well damn, something good finally happened today."

The chair creaks and then Xigbar is leaning over Riku, his head and shoulders silhouetted by the burningly bright lamps. He gives Riku a scalp removing noogy.

"Now Riku, you be nice for Luxord. He can do a whole lot worse then give you a paper cut if you piss him off," Xigbar says cheerfully.

And then he is gone, his black coat swishing audibly in Riku's ears. Flickers of white at the edge of Riku's peripheral vision say that his Snipers are following him. The door thumps shut and Riku is alone with Luxord.

The Nobody says nothing, but Riku hears the chair scraping across the floor until it is very near to him and then Luxord's head is half visible. Riku feels fingers dancing along the leather cuff around his wrist.

"What are you doing?" Riku asks, even as the absurd answer comes to him. Luxord is letting his arms loose.

"Unlike Xigbar, I have no intention of being alone with my thoughts for five hours. I assume you know some card games?" Luxord asks politely.

"Yeah, a few…." Riku answers cautiously.

"What are they?" Luxord asks.

"Crazy eights, go fish, golf, liar-liar…." Riku goes through the short list.

"Liar-liar?" Luxord pulls the cuff off Riku's wrist.

"Our parents never let us say bullshit."

"Ah."

Luxord moves to the other side and smoothly unwraps the buckled restraint from Riku's right wrist. One arm slides under Riku's shoulders and he pushes the teenager into a sitting position. When Xigbar had told Riku that the drug was better then morphine, he had not been joking. Riku's mind remains wide awake, but after tugging, twitching, and shifting his body for the better part of an hour, Riku finds that the most he can do is pull steadily at the restraints for a few seconds before exhaustion makes him quit. If Luxord had not helped him, Riku would have had a difficult time pushing his upper body off the table.

Luxord goes back to the chair. Riku pulls his heavy arms into his lap and looks around. The room is bare. The table he is on and the chair next to it are the only decorations. Luxord, himself, and four Gambler Nobodies are the only living things inside it. Riku suddenly knows with horrid clarity that this is the Organization XIII equivalent of a students' operating room. The professor makes the incision and the students peer inside the cadaver.

But Riku deeply doubts that all the subjects on this table were dead.

The cuffs prove it.

"Here." Luxord slaps a deck of cards down next to Riku's thigh. "You shuffle, I'll deal."

Riku stares at him. "Why?"

"This way you won't be able to say I rigged the cards," Luxord says.

Riku can see a sort of logic in this, though he doubts something so simple would prevent Luxord from cheating if he truly wants to. The man was given the title 'Gambler Of Fate' for God's sake.

With his narcotic induced lethargy, Riku's hands stumble and slip. He was never a great shuffler, never had any fancy tricks like some casino dealers he once saw, but before today he has never dropped half the deck three times in a row. Riku bites back curses and sweeps them back into his hands to start over again. Luxord says nothing, merely waiting patiently beside Riku.

Finally, Riku feels he has mixed the deck thoroughly and hands it back to Luxord. The blond man's eyes never leave the cards as he rapidly flicks eight cards face down to Riku, eight to himself, slaps one face up on the table, and drops the rest of the deck next to it.

"We'll play crazy eights," Luxord states. There is no option of argument in his voice. It is clear that it is _his_ game, not Riku's. "If I win, I want you to tell me why you were after Roxas. Want do you want?"

Riku blinks. "You place bets for crazy eights?" Riku asks.

"For everything. What do you want?" Luxord asks.

Riku thinks. A ride out of the World That Never Was is not an option. It is a nice thought, but utterly unrealistic. So Riku goes for the next best thing at the moment.

"Your coat."

Luxord blinks.

"I'm freezing all the time in this drafty windmill you call a base. If I win, I want your coat," Riku says, completely serious.

Being cold is only half the reason though. Even if they were the thinnest silk, he would welcome a set of pajamas. Riku just wants something covering his body again.

Luxord gives a small, amused smile. "Very well. My coat for your victory."

The face up card is the six of hearts. Riku has the ace of hearts and sets it down before Luxord can go before him. That card is countered with the ace of clubs. Riku has none to match it and draws three more cards from the pile before he gets what he needs.

"Why do you fight?" Luxord asks.

Riku looks up from his hand. Luxord is staring at him with an honest face, something Riku would have a great deal more faith in if Luxord had not been wearing what he was. Black would blot out everyone's sins.

"What do you mean by that?" Riku asks and watches as Luxord drops the two of clubs on top of the previous card. Riku has no clubs, but he does have a two of hearts. He relinquishes it and switches the theme back to hearts. Luxord calmly picks through his hand before giving up a five.

"I mean, why haven't you gone back home? A fight is a gamble, like everything else. A risk for something that seems to be worth it. I fight to regain my heart and become a complete being again. What are you risking yourself for and is it really worth so much to you?" Luxord asks.

'_Tricky, tricky….'_

Riku does not want to give away the mission DiZ charged him with - reviving Sora at the probable cost of Roxas' life - and if he says the plain truth, that it is his friends he fights for, then it would inevitably come up.

Come to think of it, agreeing to the bet with the stakes as they were was probably a bad idea….

Riku lays down a seven of hearts.

"I fight for my heart as well," Riku finally says. "Only instead of finding it, I have to keep it."

Luxord switches to diamonds. "Why? Is the thought of being consumed by darkness again that frightening?" Luxord asks.

Riku plays a three. "Yes."

"Then I wonder if we will all be like you when we've regained ourselves. No longer able to fearlessly embrace the dark like we do now, we'd be reduced to fighting against it even as we fight with it. Truly, not a pleasant prospect."

"It sounds like you might pity me."

"Not in the least. You're simply a walking paradox. I'm not a scientist like the originals, but you're still rather fascinating even to me. Biology was more of Lexaeus' thing, but I still wonder why Superior hasn't made a cadaver of you yet. Or at the very least another Heartless and Nobody."

"…. I really didn't need that image."

"Oh. Sorry."

Riku draws a card when he has none and does not react when he sees it is an eight. Calmly, he glances over his remaining cards and notes that of the eight hearts cards still left in the deck, he has six. He slips the eight on the top of the used card pile and changes the theme to hearts.

Luxord has to draw five cards before he finds what he needs. From that moment it is all downhill for the Gambler. Even as he continuously changed the theme to anything but hearts, Riku changes it right back with his turn. The fan of cards in Riku's hands slims and slims while Luxord's only grows bigger.

At last, it is over and Riku is pulling the heavy Organization coat around him as best he can. His lack of mobility makes sliding the length of it under his legs a severe problem. Luxord stands to the side, neither helping nor hindering, but watching with a small grin on his face that makes Riku squirm inside.

The zipper goes down and Riku's body is obscured from sight once again. Riku fiddles with the drawstrings around the hood, before deciding that tightening them wouldn't help his collarbones. Height wise Luxord is not that much bigger, but he is far broader than Riku and the coat hangs loose.

"Why did you let me win?" Riku asks.

Luxord looks absurdly innocent. "Surely you don't think I am capable of such utter deceit?"

Riku gives him a slant eyed look. "You could have beaten me any time and we both know it. Why didn't you?"

Luxord shrugs his shoulders. Without his coat, he is wearing the boots and pants found on every Organization member, but his long sleeved dark shirt has an ace of spades patch on the breast.

"I didn't really care whether I won or lost. This was just a way to kill time, as I said before. Superior doesn't keep anyone or anything just for the hell of it, so there must be a good reason why you're still here the way you are. I learned a long time ago not to meddle in something Xemnas takes a personal interest in. If he doesn't want to get any information out of you yet, then neither do I."

Again, this makes a sort of sense. Riku cannot – will not – ever trust a Nobody, barring Naminé, but they have no reason to lie all the time.

So smoothly that Riku's proximity alarms do not go off, Luxord reaches out and shoves a hand against Riku's chest, knocking the teen back onto the table. Riku is too weak to push himself up. Luxord gathers the cards at the edge of the table and sweeps them back together, then drops them in his pocket. The cuffs go back around Riku's wrists and Luxord retires to his chair.

If he plays a game now, Riku knows it will be solitaire.

----------

_Sorry for the wait. _

_Next Time – As the only living creature able to block out Demyx's prattling, Riku has more then enough time to…. Yes, that's right. Reflect again. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	13. Prayer

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Demyx will not shut up.

"…. So then Axel was 'Oh yeah? Well let's see you dance, pretty boy!' And then there was a bunch of fire and screaming, so I beat it out of there…."

The noise was welcome for a scant few minutes after Luxord's shift ended and the silence was pushed away, but now Riku keeps wishing that a darkness portal would open up and drop a piano on Demyx's chattering head.

"…. And Superior actually blamed _me_ for not keeping Axel in line! Do you honestly think I'm capable of that?! At least that's what I _wanted_ to say, but I'm not suicidal, so I…."

A _grand_ piano.

It makes sense that he enjoys speaking. He is a musician, so he is bound to have a fondness for any form of sound. This realization simply brings Riku deeper into his melancholy as he realizes that there really is no way of making Demyx stop his prattling short of physical violence, which is entirely out of his reach at this time.

In fact, any physical movement is beyond him as the drug (whose name Riku has given up trying to pronounce) is still _drip-drip-dripping_ into his bloodstream. The IV stand would serve as a decent club if Riku could lift it. The thought of it crashing into Demyx's face is enjoyable.

Riku wonders why evolution refrained from giving people ear lids as well as eyelids. Perhaps Mother Nature had a sadistic streak? If she possessed precognition and saw one of her children's future plights, strapped down helpless while a freak of nature rambles incessantly, keeping him from blocking out the words would fit the profile of sadism. It ran borderline on pure evil, in fact.

"…. And did I tell you how much it sucks wearing these coats in the snow? They don't keep the heat in or the cold out. We have cheap leather. I tried to get Marluxia to lend some of the plant fibers from his garden, when he still had one anyway, for a new coat and maybe to sew me a new coat himself, because he _did_ raise flowers and all, and even with that scythe he was _way_ more feminine then Larxene would ever be. It was a reasonable request you know? That freak tried to feed me to a giant flytrap! I'm serious, it was _huge_ and it really tried to eat me, after I helped water it and everything…."

'_Dear Lord,'_ Riku prays, '_ I realize I've been invoking Your name a lot lately, but seriously, I need help this time. If something doesn't shut this being up very soon, I'm going to scream. I will scream loudly and without shame, for it will block out his noise, if only for a little while. I must not fall to the torture of the Organization, for the well being of Kingdom Hearts and all worlds in general, so could You please help me out here? Pretty please? I'm not asking much, just a storm to knock their floating castle down or a bolt of divine smiting lightning to crash through the ceiling and hit Demyx, or me, whichever. I really don't mind. Please?' _

Riku waits and Demyx talks. Riku counts twenty heartbeats.

'…_. Dude, You __**so**__ owe me! I have to share a body with a crazy man! Come on, give me some holy wrath!'_

Nothing comes.

Riku is, as always, on his own.

'_Damn. It. All.' _

----------

_My shortest chapter to date. The bad news: I couldn't think of anything else to add to this segment. The good news:_

_Next Time - Meet the Superior! …Riku relives some trauma. We finally find out (sort of, because Xemnas is a cryptic bastard) why Riku's been treated the way he has. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	14. I

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

The door opens.

"You may leave now."

Riku jolts.

He knows it was inevitable, but to have it actually happen is….

…. _Horrifying_.

Xaldin does not question his leader. He leaves as silently as he entered. His Dragoons trail after him like the tail on a kite. Riku watches him go in mute terror. Number III has shown him no kindness, no sympathy, but that does not stop Riku from wanting to scream '_don't leave me with him!'_

The Whirlwind Lancer is gone.

"So."

Riku sucks his stomach into his chest and tries to sink into the table.

Footsteps sound, slow and unstoppable. A will of authority is in the air. The bright lights burn Riku's eyes until they water, but he cannot look away.

The edge of a coat brushes against his side and Riku feels his heart stop for a moment. Then it is back, going triple-time _bambambambambambam_ until he thinks it should be erupting from his body any second now.

"Riku. I have wanted to meet you before this. Your heart is one of the most unusual I've seen in a while. Not quite dark, not quite light, but something entirely else. The Twilight."

A cat with the mouse under its paw.

"Tell me Riku…."

He says the name like they are friends.

'_Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong.'_

The lights that burn him and shield him are blocked off by something staring down at him with demon eyes and silver hair.

"…. What is it like to have the best of both?" Xemnas asks.

Riku's throat constricts. He cannot speak.

"…. No answer? As you wish then."

Xemnas isn't moving. He keeps staring at Riku with those burning eyes, that little smile that is not a smile, he will not look away, he sees everything -

'_SAY SOMETHING!' _Riku screams at himself.

"There isn't much reason why I should want to talk with you," Riku says. His voice is low and thin and tired, but it is better this way because if he were any louder he would tremble and stutter.

The smile leaves and Xemnas stares down at him with that never-ending apathy. The world seems to slide a little bit back into its rightful alignment.

"True enough. Don't feel obligated to speak when spoken to. I can find out enough on my own," Xemnas says.

_(Riku strapped to the lab table and __**It**__ standing over him with the scalpel and iodine._

"_This won't hurt a bit." _

_Scream.) _

"But not everything," Riku says swiftly. Too fast, too scared.

"No, not everything. For instance, I doubt I could find out why you went after XIII. I have theories, of course, but no admission from yourself to prove them," Xemnas admits readily.

'_And you won't get it, you won't have him, __**you **__**won't have him!**_**' **Riku remembers clown smiles and paopu fruit.

"I could say that you needed XIII for information. He is the newest of us after all and from a logical standpoint that would say that he is the weakest. But you found out for yourself that it isn't always the case, correct?" Xemnas doesn't smirk, but his voice does.

_(Cold night air and not-Sora coming at him.) _

"Correct," Riku whispers.

Like blood moving down glass, Xemnas moves away from Riku. He is out of sight and his voice circles around Riku like a vulture.

"I could say that you were simply trying to kill him, reduce our numbers one by one. It would mean one less enemy to worry about. Yet, somehow, I can't believe that is what you were trying to do either."

Xemnas is rambling and Riku is too scared to laugh about it.

"Because you are attached to a Keyblade master, possibly _the_ Keyblade master, and Roxas is as well. Why would you kill part of him, when there is a chance for reconciling the two halves and making one whole being again? It's been a whole year since Roxas joined our ranks and we've not seen Sora but once since that time. Tell me Riku…."

Xemnas is beside him, looking at him, _opening him up…!_

"…Where is Sora? He's been missing since Marluxia's death. Axel does not know where he is. None of my agents have been able to discover a single trace of his whereabouts. We know he was with Naminé. We know she was reconstructing his memories, but a few days after she placed him in that pod, both he and she vanished, along with the King's lackeys. _Where did they go?_"

'_Don't crack,'_ whispers Riku's love.

"I don't know," Riku says.

Idiot.

"Liar," Xemnas says simply.

His gloved hand is so cold when it grabs Riku's chin.

"Where is the Keyblade Master?" Xemnas bores into him.

Riku cannot find the strength to look away. The drug has nothing to do with it.

"I don't know," Riku whines. He feels his body starting to shake.

Something like amusement flickers in Xemnas' eyes.

"You're scared of me," Xemnas notes.

Riku says nothing.

"I can't blame you. My Heartless was quite a beast, if rumor rings true. And you had it inside you, didn't you Riku? For a little while, you had all of my power and all of my rage inside your body."

He leans in close and his breath (_it doesn't even have a scent_) puffs against Riku's face.

"Or do you still have it?" Xemnas asks.

He pulls away and Riku feels his lungs burning. He still cannot breath.

"I could break you. I doubt it would take me a single day. Your heart is already bound with memories of my other half. I can see it when you look at me. You are out of your mind with terror right now. I could take you, break you, and remake you into whatever I want."

He paces.

"Would you be a Nobody, number XIV?"

He paces.

"Would you remain whole, but completely subservient to me?"

He paces.

"Would you be my experiment and show me the secrets of the Twilight?"

He stops.

Those awful eyes stare at Riku and he sees Chaos in them.

"What shall I make you Riku?" Xemnas asks.

_(His body, moving smoothly from stance to stance_ _but not at his wish._

_Soul Reaver and Keyblade_ _smashing against each other. _

_A princess, __**his princess**__, hanging between them. _

'_What shall we make of her, eh boy?' _

_Riku fights __**it**__ with the desperation of someone who knows that he cannot win.)_

"I'll fight you. I'll always fight you," Riku croaks. His voice is fleeing. Riku envies it.

"Yes, for a time. But nobody lasts forever. You know that. I know that. So, what to do…."

He stops at the table and his hand strokes Riku's chest, feeling for the beating of the treasured thing within.

"…._ don't…._" Riku's voice is pitiful.

Xemnas stops his motions, leaving his palm pressed against Riku's breast.

"Why not?" The monster asks. "I've been more than generous with you, more than merciful. I could have had you tortured to get what I want, or coerced, but I didn't. I have made every attempt to be nice Riku. You simply don't comply."

'_What?'_ Riku wonders.

"I gave you your first chance when you arrived. You chose not to leave when it was only two Dragoons and a barred gate keeping you here. I gave you a second chance with Luxord, the only one of us who would have let you leave if you had earned it from him. Again, you let it go. _I gave you every opportunity to leave and you ignored them all._"

Xemnas' voice is heated and Riku now knows that just because the mind is the only thing you have left does not mean you cannot lose that too.

Xemnas' grip tightens and Riku feels his skin being pulled through the coat.

"So now, I'm giving you _one more chance_. Leave my castle. Go back to your Sora. Bring him back to me. Bring the Keyblade back, Riku."

The missing puzzle piece is found.

And finally, _finally_, Riku understands.

"_I want my heart._ And if I can't have the Keyblade send it to Kingdom Hearts first, then so be it. I will rip it from your body and all the darkness with it. I will have you plucked from that shell you were born into, and I and **he** shall find a common interest in tormenting you for the rest of our existence."

Xemnas is trying to tear the skin from Riku's bones. He hauls Riku off the table until the restraints keep him from going any further.

"Do you understand?" Xemnas asks.

"Perfectly," Riku answers.

----------

_If you __**really**__ think about, the answers are there. If not, don't worry. I'll get around to having Riku explain it himself later on. _

_Next Time – Caught between a rock and a hard place, Riku faces his toughest decision yet. Or at least in this story. Will he make a deal with the devil or forfeit his own existence?_

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	15. Choices

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

There is no guard.

The restraints are loosened.

The drug is stopped up in the IV line.

Riku cannot bring himself to leave.

Xemnas did it all. This is one reason. Riku is loath to accept anything from that creature.

The second reason is simpler still.

Riku is unsure.

That horrible, tearing, twisting feeling inside his mind, when one half wants to go left and the other half wants to go right. Riku thought he had left it behind him when he accepted the Twilight, took in both the good and the bad and made them both into something bearable. But the fighting in the dark and in his dark, the Nobodies, the horrible sense of failure, Kairi, hunger, dehydration, weariness, **It**, _Xemnas…._

Riku does not know what to do.

Because now Riku knows what he _can_ do, what Xemnas _wants_ him to do.

It is so brilliant, but so fucking childishly simple that Riku cannot believe he did not see it before.

_Sora_.

Sora, Sora, always Sora.

The light of the universe, the savior of the worlds, the one true Keyblade Master, and the list goes on and on.

Riku fell from light and love and into darkness, trying to save Kairi while only succeeding in hurting her and Sora. Kairi, who hid herself in Sora. Sora, who fought for a boy that became a beast. They lost themselves to the dark because of Riku. They regained their hearts only through each other.

Riku was never the hero.

Naminé.

Roxas.

Living evidence of his betrayal, they were the pieces of Sora and Kairi that were left behind. But that is all. Pieces. Riku thinks, hopes sometimes, that they real things. Not shadows of the originals but real people in their own right. Able to live and learn and experience like any other.

Naminé, a cold and calculating machine incapable of joy?

_(You're tracking mud in again, you blockhead." _

"_Get new carpeting."_

"_I like the kind I have." _

"_White." _

"_Of course." _

"_With me popping to and from God knows where, with God knows what on my feet when I come back, you still insist on __**white?**__" _

"_Yes." _

"… _I'll get the vacuum." _

"_Good boy.") _

…Perhaps when Marluxia rises from the grave to adopt orphaned bunnies.

Nobodies.

Not the real thing.

Not the real Keyblade.

Roxas is a pale imitation of Sora. Riku knows this, even having only once met the other face-to-face. He does not have Sora's fire, or Sora's will, or Sora's drive….

No. All Roxas has is the stories that drift in to him about a boy from an island and what that boy did.

He has a Keyblade, but that Keyblade did not choose him.

It chose Sora.

And with Sora unable to wield it, it had simply gone to the next best thing.

Roxas has no heart.

Roxas cannot lock the worlds and Roxas cannot enter Kingdom Hearts.

A Keyblade locked Kingdom Hearts and only a Keyblade can unlock it, but Roxas is a shadow of what a Keyblade warrior truly is. He cuts and smashes and destroys the Heartless with the best of them, but what does that bring him? No new roads to travel, no new friends to remember, no additional light in his soul.

Roxas has no soul.

The Keyblade will not guide him.

There is no darkness in Roxas, true, but there is no light.

_There is no heart._

How long it took Xemnas to figure this out, Riku can only guess. The Superior is uncannily sharp. Such a thing as his prize subordinate being unable to open the path to Kingdom Hearts would not go beyond his notice for long. No heart to see the way with means no lock to open.

Xemnas had a problem.

He had a castle full of emotionless, devious Nobodies who lived and breathed only for the chance to regain themselves. He had several of said Nobodies wiped out in an attempted takeover already. He had a Keyblade Master who could not give him what he wanted.

The solution?

Why, elementary my dear Watson.

Get back the Keyblade Master who could.

And if Roxas had to go down for that to happen, so be it.

Riku hates himself for being so stupid.

The golden prize, the Nobody with a Keyblade, the being he had searched so long and hard for. Months and months on end of following dead leads, and stumbling into ambushes, and feeling his hopes be crushed over and _over_, so that when Roxas finally did show up in the open Riku seized his chance without looking for the rot inside the fruit.

Why would Xemnas only _now_ let Roxas off the leash, after nearly a year of scattered sightings and week old trails?

Because Xemnas knew.

He _knew_ that Riku was sniffing around like a hunting dog.

He _knew_ that Riku would bring Roxas back to Sora.

And he _knows_ that, one way or another, Sora will eventually come to him when that happens.

And after that, it will all be downhill.

Riku loves Sora. He admits it easily now and he knows what his friend's honor and compassion could lead him to. It would be so easy. Frighteningly easy. All it would take was a hostage here or a threat there….

As soon as he thinks this, Riku _knows._

Kairi.

Yes, she would be perfect.

The delicate princess loved by all. Xemnas would set his dogs after her and drag her to his castle and Sora would come like metal to a magnet. What do you want, he will ask. My heart and all that lies within Kingdom Hearts, naturally, Xemnas will answer. Give it all to me, every last bit of it, and she is yours again.

Oh God, Sora _would._

Can't happen.

'_Can't, won't shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't, __**can't…!'**_

Sora will wake up, no matter how long it takes.

Xemnas is patient.

While Sora sleeps, Kingdom Hearts and Kairi are both safe.

But every day Sora is not there to save them, more worlds fall to the Heartless. Entire civilizations are lost to the dark. The lucky few who survive are cast adrift like so much flotsam to wash up on whatever world that pulls them in.

So Riku shivers.

Riku can save himself and speed up the process. Give Xemnas what he wants. Get rid of Roxas and get back Sora. Stay with Kairi and Sora to keep them both safe and beat Xemnas at his own game, send the other half howling into the dark with the first half. Give the worlds a fighting chance.

And yet, he hesitates.

He hesitates because it is _Xemnas_, Nobody to Xehanort and companion creature to **it.** How can Riku be sure of anything he says, no matter how well it fits in with everything else? How can he knowingly bring his friend to face that monstrosity in a fight to the death?

Riku cannot protect Sora from Organization XIII beyond hiding him.

If Riku gives Sora back to the waking world, Sora will not stay hidden. Ever.

So….

Deny Xemnas. Save Sora, save Kairi, save Kingdom Hearts. More worlds fall to the Heartless and the Nobodies.

'_Not to mention the likelihood of me getting out of this castle dropping down into the negatives.'_

Give in to Xemnas. Walk out with Roxas, somehow, and get his friend back. Begin striking out against the encroaching dark. Risk Kairi's safety and the safety of Kingdom Hearts itself.

'_And never be able to look myself in the mirror again. …Scratch that, I already wear the freaking blindfold.'_

The dark within clashes with the light. Self-preservation against friend preservation.

Riku is sixteen years old, but he feels ready to crawl into bed and never get out again.

'_I shouldn't have to feel this way.'_

----------

_Sorry it took so long. Getting ready for college is a bitch, you know? _

_Next Time – His hair is blond and his skin is too pale. Riku latches on to those little differences and tells himself that it isn't Sora._

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	16. XIII

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

"Hey."

Riku twitches in his dreams.

"Wake up Riku."

Not Sora, it cannot be Sora, but….

"Wake. Up."

The hands pushing him are insistent now.

…. Why is it so familiar, if it cannot be Sora?

Riku wakes up, the jellyfish lights cutting through his sleep haze like a knife. He hisses and squints his eyes shut.

"Look at me."

That damn voice. It is so annoying now.

Riku turns away from the brightness and looks to his side. Black fabric and, out of the top of his vision, silver chains.

Blond hair.

_No. _

"Can you understand me or not?" The Nobody asks.

Riku does not bother telling himself that it is a dream. The reality is too cruel to even hope for it.

Not-Sora stares at him. "You are going to talk to me. One way or another, you will."

Riku feels so old.

'_It isn't him, it __**isn't.**__'_

"Nobody will be here to stop me," Not-Sora says. Riku feels a flicker of amusement at the unintentional pun.

"Superior said that he has no more use for you."

Thereby giving Not-Sora every reason to come right away, lest he miss his chance to find out what he wants. Thereby leaving him alone with Riku, who can break free at any second. Thank you _so_ much, Xemnas.

"So, you are going to die soon. Maybe even worse. If you tell me what I want to know, I will make your end quick and honorable."

It was sad really. That was probably the most the Nobody knew of mercy.

'_It isn't Sora.'_

Not-Sora leans onto the table and stares at Riku hard. His long exhale catches Riku's bangs and sends them whooshing.

"You are Riku. You know more about Sora then anyone else I could get to. Tell me about him," Not-Sora orders.

Riku smiles a thin, wane smile. "What is there to tell? You aren't him. You wouldn't understand him…."

Not-Sora glares. "And how do you know that?"

Riku laughs tiredly. "Because _I_ don't understand him. Never will either."

Riku stares stupidly into the light.

"I think I like that way though," Riku remarks.

"So you were good friends?" Not-Sora presses.

"The best. We were, at least. Now…." Riku trails off. He is not so naïve as to believe things will be as they were. Not when he tried to kill Sora. Not when he did horrible things to other people for Kairi.

But he hopes and it hurts to do so.

"So, tell me about him," Not-Sora says again.

"No," Riku sighs.

"_Why not?!"_ Not-Sora snarls. Riku stares at him with mild fascination. Has he already stoked this fake's thin anger so easily?

"Because it would be like explaining the sky to a blind man," Riku says bluntly, feeling his dream cloud patience blow away.

Not-Sora blinks.

"I could talk for days and you would get this image in your mind and you would hold onto it, thinking that it was the truth. Then you would see him and hear him and know him and it would all come crashing down in a jumble of broken edges and confusion. You can't know about him or understand him. Not _you_," Riku says.

Not-Sora gives him a look that would freeze lava. "Because I'm a _Nobody_?" Not-Sora asks frigidly.

Riku gives him a look that freezes the sun. He has had far more practice then this one-year-old shell. "Because Sora is nothing but the heart and something without an echo of true emotion can't comprehend him, even through another's words."

The Nobody says nothing.

The hate comes back at his silence. Riku shakes with fury, seething that this abomination should be free to walk around when _Sora_ is locked away in a half-living state. It is the fight in the city all over again. Riku does not have his sword, but he does have his tongue.

"You are nothing," Riku spits. "You are a copy, a fragment of something great. You were born from a mistake and you only exist because other mistakes took you in! You're not him, you're nothing like him! You're cold and cowardly and sneaky and empty and hollow and vile and_ unwanted and undesired and hated and ugly and broken and-!"_

Riku is screaming at the end, when the Nobody's hand flies down and latches around his throat. Riku's words are cut off in a strangled gurgle.

Not-Sora is crushing Riku's windpipe. His face is a mask devoid of anything human.

"It was clearly a mistake coming here. You are useless to me," Not-Sora says in his best monotone.

Riku pulls futilely at his cuffs, forgetting that all he must do to get loose is slide his hands out. Not-Sora leans in close to Riku's face, which is turning very blue.

"However much pain I am causing you, please believe me when I say that it is less than what the Superior would give you. In that comparison, how am _I _being cruel?" Not-Sora says.

The pressure in Riku's head is growing. His thoughts scramble like cockroaches in the light to find a solution. His solution is steeped in the darkness.

_But dare he--?_

"I will find answers on my own," The Nobody says as Riku's vision fades.

Blue eyes.

'_Not Sora.'_

Spiky hair.

'_Not Sora.'_

Round cheeks.

'_Not Sora.'_

Apathy in his gaze.

'_**Not Sora.' **_

Blond.

'_**Not Sora.' **_

Pale from lack of sun.

'_**Not Sora.' **_

He hates it. He did not expect to make the decision so suddenly, but now it is all he has. Oh, how he hates thinking about Xemnas' smug smile when he learns what Riku has done.

Riku shoves out his words as he feels for his power, the only power he has left to on call on.

"Ggglnaaawt hiiigggmm…." Riku says.

'_**YOU AREN'T HIM!'**_

"Hm?" Not-Sora's left eyebrow ticks up in curiosity and his grip on Riku's throat relaxes ever so slightly.

It is enough.

Riku breathes in deep and makes his choice and screams.

"_YOU'RE JUST A __**NOBODY!!!**__"_

Riku makes his final move.

----------

_I have graduated from high school. It is a truly terrifying realization. Hell, in two and half more years, I'm going to be 20! How's that for funky?_

_Next Time – It is easier to fall into Hell then it is to get out. Especially when black coat wearing dudes keep throwing magic at you._

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	17. Escape

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

There is D-A-R-K-N-E-S-S all around him.

There is darkness _in_ him and it is boiling up fast, _too_ fast, like liquid under pressure and he cannot stop it, he cannot control it. He can only ride it and try not to be swept under.

_- Did you miss me? -_

- Oh, fuck -

Get loose.

Grab his throat.

Crush tightly.

Do unto others what they have done unto you.

Do not let go, no matter how much he kicks, no matter how much he scratches.

Save Sora, no matter what.

_No matter __**what**_.

Riku is not Riku, not anymore. He is **it** and not **it**, Riku and not Riku. Two pressures in his skull, one a boy and the other a thing. They push and scratch and bite and claw at each other for control of the body that is half his and half **his.**

Roxas is no longer moving.

Riku sees this and pulls the control of his hands back to himself. **It** does not go back easily anymore. There is no laughing demon at the back of his skull. **It** is all around him, all inside him, roiling and boiling and scratching and pushing at him like the maggot inside the meat. _It will not go back down!_

_- Not again boy, never again - _

Riku wails, but he has made his choice and there is no time to regret because portals are opening all around him, reeking of the darkness, reeking of **it**, and the black coats are stepping through.

Make some destiny.

Now.

This instant.

Riku snatches a handful of Roxas' coat and jumps away like an animal.

Axel is first.

Healed and furious and flaming, he rushes Riku screaming. Riku dodges and jumps and smashes through a wall with strength that is terrifying and wonderful at the same time. Roxas dangles from his grip like a paper bag. Flames scorch the tail end of Riku's coat and he hears Axel screaming in frustration behind him, but there is no more time to think as Xigbar flashes into existence in front of Riku. Riku is coming too fast to stop and so he doesn't and goes faster and knocks Xigbar away like a toy.

_- Fun fun fun -_

**It** runs through the hall with spears flashing around and Xaldin dancing on the wind behind him. Through another wall, up through the ceiling and into a grand space of crystals and lights. The wind picks at **its **coat, tries to pull it closer to Xaldin, who waits with a spear and Dragoons erupting all around like a pack of floating sharks. **It** laughs and flicks power, slamming Xaldin down, down, down and down until he is out of sight, but still definitely falling.

**It** is not falling. **It** floats and drifts and looks down at the prize in hand and teasingly loosens the grip on Roxas' coat.

Riku comes up snarling and spitting, seizing control of the body –

(_THE body, not his, not anymore, oh God, oh God, HELP ME_)

- and crushing Roxas to the chest that is too big for him and yet still too small for **it**, but not for much longer.

There is music in the air.

**It** pushes Riku from within and the geyser of water pushes from without. Demyx is no longer the friendly warden. His face is chilling and his fingers are dancing, dancing, dancing across his sitar. Riku falls, hits a walkway, and is up in an instant, something inhuman shielding him. Riku realizes with horror that it is **its** pet, the thing that guards **its** back and it has come and Riku cannot – _cannot -_ bring himself to acknowledge what that means, even though the answer is in his mind and frenzied.

Riku dodges to the side, his jacket swishing around his calves -

_(It touched the floor before but he is taller now though he wishes otherwise)_

- and Roxas dragging along the floor behind him. Riku lifts his hand and lets go of that horrible, slick power that is crushing him inside. It explodes in blue and black flames, a fireball to make Axel envious. Demyx goes down howling, his water rushing around to kill off the flames that eat away at the Nobody with glee.

_Crunch! _

Fashionably late and as cool as the moon he longs for, Saïx wields the claymore with his inhuman strength and swings it at Riku, uncaring that Roxas is near. Riku goes right and falls from the catwalk, tumbling down into the dark. Number VII follows him without a thought.

The darkness is wild beyond his grasp, but Riku can _twist it - _

- and fall through it to another room, still in the castle, but away from the berserker. He falls and clutches at his/**its** heart, knowing that he has only seconds, but unable to move because he is weakening and **it** is the jackal that bites his heel.

_- Give it up, let me control it, give it to me, give it to me give it give it give it to me - _

- No they'll kill us both we'll fight later just let me -

_- Nononono never again I won't go back mine now it is mine mine mine - _

- Fight later we have to get out work with me or I'll kill us both I won't go back to being a prisoner again not by you not by anyone -

_- Hate you boy I hate you -_

- I hate you monster let us work together just once and then settle it finally forever forever -

_- Make me proud - _

- Disgusting -

They come.

II and III and VII and VIII and IX and X. The Superior is absent. Riku does not worry about it because he has enough to think about right now. The thing in his heart slithers up next to him, not fighting, but bracing him, helping him. The darkness is still fighting him, but now he has the strength to _make_ it obey him. The demon circles his back, guarding his rear. The two are not one, but it close, much closer than either of them have ever been and it is frighteningdisgustingrevoltingterrorifying-

_- Enough flattery. Let's move -_

And RUSH!

Dark Auras and Dark Flares and darkness, darkness, darkness against darkness. Riku/**It** ducks razor edged cards and flying chakrams and hops on a swinging claymore, kicks VII in the face, whirls and _twists_-

- to come behind Xaldin and swing Soul Reaver -

(-Way To The Dawn, where where where?!-

­_-Such a useless trinket-_)

- but they miss as Xigbar fires his gun with those hated fingers and something whistles past close enough to shred a few silver strands of hair loose.

(_They are too long_)

Land with one knee bent and one leg splayed.

Barbeque off those horrible shooting fingers with dark fire. Burn baby, burn.

Is it Riku or **it** that laughs with glee at Xigbar's scream?

They run and ricochet off a wall to dodge a spear. They see through the eyes of the pet that Xaldin is closest behind them. Riku/**It** remembers the way the Whirlwind Lancer looked at him. Like an insect. Like he wasn't a person.

Their hand wraps around the next spear that comes their way and snatches it out of the air that holds it. The wind tries to take it back and they send bolts of darkness to shred apart the resistance. They turn the point towards III. He tries to move, but his momentum carries him forward. What little chance he has to avoid the tip of his own weapon is removed when they decide to return the Nobody's toy.

_- Butterfly on corkboard - _

The wind that had been tearing at their coat and hair drops even faster than Xaldin's body. Axel, Luxord, and Saïx are next, with a still singed Demyx bringing up the rear. Flaming chakrams and razor edged cards fly towards them, but they _twist -_

- and come out on the roof of some section of the floating castle. Roxas is thoroughly battered, but still out cold. One half wants to flee, the other to fight, and while they separate for a single moment the rooftop beside them explodes out and the Luna Diviner rockets toward them, weapon first.

The taste of blood and defeat is still fresh, along with the scrape of asphalt and the chill of rain. They unite and duck and let the berserker's own fury be his undoing. VII moves forward, they brace their arm, and Soul Reaver drinks deeply of Saïx's blood.

He is not cut in half, though by all rights he should be. Soul Reaver's jagged teeth have hooked his guts like an anchor does seaweed. They push up and fling their sword and the Nobody flies away, dropping his claymore on the silver rooftop and leaving an arc of splattering blood behind him.

- _I_ enjoyed _that_, yes _indeed _-

His or **his?**

Both.

The roar of fire rushes to their ears from the hole. They turn and flee, heading for the nearest balcony, which is nothing more than a staircase between doorways. Behind them are the heavy _thump-thump-thump_ sounds that come only from boots smacking against ground.

_Twist _-

- and come out behind Axel. The redhead ducks and sends a chakram to grind against Soul Reaver's teeth. The second arm slides through the air to impale their stomach on the pointy end of a chakram spike. Their pet swings around and catches the threat in one black claw. Soul Reaver pulls back and they hide behind the darkness creation. Axel screams in fury, but he cannot break free and now both his arms are caught.

They smile and slam Soul Reaver through their pet and into Axel on the other side.

He crumples and bleeds scarlet all over the white of the rooftop. They look at him and remember his assault on them in the cell. They wonder if that was another of the Superior's attempts to help them escape and bring Roxas to Sora.

'_Webs within webs within webs he is a spider am I a fly? No time to wonder worry later fight now move.'_

It no longer matters who is thinking the thoughts in their mind. The thoughts are there and that is the only thing that matters.

Footsteps.

Light.

Cautious.

They turn and see the gambler and the musician staring at them. No one moves.

"Care to try?" They ask

Luxord's eyes flick to the splatter of blood that marks Saïx's departure. Demyx stares at Axel's barely living form.

Soul Reaver thirsts.

Luxord backs away into the dark, vanishing with a flick of his hand. Demyx looks pointedly at Axel and then at them and then at Axel again.

They sneer. "Take the trash."

Axel is booted over to Demyx, who bends down and, in the most compassionate act either of the two has ever seen from one of the black coats, picks Axel up as gently as possible. Light is shoved away by darkness, Demyx steps back and they are alone.

They breathe.

It is over.

They cannot believe it.

Then there is darkness rippling and someone steps out near them and a _horrible_ sensation crawls through them. Riku is Riku and **it **is **it** as the two hearts are separated again. Something is pulling them apart.

Riku turns his head and sees why. Xemnas is standing on the rooftop, his mouth in a perfect 'O' of surprise. The proximity of Nobody and Heartless is causing the two halves to react, to be drawn to each other. **It** craves the touch of the body and the body craves the touch of the heart.

All the carefully thought out schemes and plans and plots are thrown to the wind as the simple instinct to _be whole_ overtakes all rational thought between Xemnas and **it.** Foreign urges rise within Riku and Xemnas reaches forward to claim what he longs for. He came for something different, to taunt or remind the boy of his obligation or to just stand back and look fucking dramatic, but now he is getting something he had not planned for.

Riku, feeling the monstrosity within him loosen **its** hold on his own heart, knows that all it will take is a second of submission to **its** will.

The heart will join the body and Riku will be _free_.

And so will **it.**

"No."

Riku seizes the power that he longs for, even as it repulses him. He tightens the grip on Roxas' coat.

'_I never take the easy way,'_ Riku remembers.

Riku _twists _-

- and **it** is screaming when **it** realizes -

- and the last thing Riku sees is Xemnas' face as he loses his heart a second time -

- and he is in an ocean of writhing, bucking, biting darkness that wants to eat him -

- and he _twists _-

- and falls to the floor of the lab in Twilight Town. DiZ is in his chair, eating a popsicle. Riku fights **it** even as DiZ rises from his seat, shock evident even through his mask. Riku screams in hate and fear and denial and terror and relief and sickness and hope and he throws Roxas to the man in red.

Riku doesn't wait to see if DiZ catches the precious prize.

Riku _twists_ and falls into the waiting arms of the darkness to fight his demon again.

----------

_I am SO sorry this took so long! I'd actually finished this a while back, but we moved to a new house and I had to get college stuff done and my computer no longer has a connection to the Internet and the disk with ALL my stories saved on it for the past THREE YEARS got lost in the shuffle and the disk I have now won't take Word documents and it took me a long time to get everything together AND I'M SORRY!_

_Next Time__ – His choice has been made. The consequences are vast. One of them is currently trying to kill him and doing a pretty good job of it. _

Edited - February 9th, 2008.


	18. Heartless

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

Someone once said that falling into the unknown is one of the most terrifying things that can happen to you.

This is true.

What they neglected to add after that was that it was always worse the second time around, because you knew what was coming at you like a freight train and you couldn't avoid it.

Two glowing lamps rush at Riku in the dark and he knows them for eyes.

"I'll make you _mine_!" **It** howls.

Riku raised his arms and wrapped his hands around **its** biceps, feeling the same be done to him. Riku squeezes and struggles and turns and throws, but **it** doesn't fall. Neither does Riku.

"I'll crush you into me and make you a puppet," comes the snarl in the dark.

Riku kicks out hard and **it** dances back, gone out of range. Riku wants the light, he wants it so much he could cry, but it is lost to him forever now. He steeps himself in the dark, feeling worming, thorny tendrils drill against him, and he gives them nothing to latch onto, nothing to sink their hooks through. Riku is the dark, totally, completely. He feels **it** move through the realm of black like a mouse scurrying through his clothes.

Riku gathers his power and lashes out, catching the wicked thing in a vicious blow. The universe bends with **its** cry and Riku pulls back, gathering his strength for another strike.

"I'll make you watch when I destroy them!"

_Sora on the ground and Kairi immobile, he is coming towards them both with Soul Reaver, and it is thirsting for their _

_- _WRONG! _-_

_He stands in the snow and the stone, half in and half out (as usual), and he looks at his best friend and he can see their princess behind him and all he can say, for everything he has done, is __**take care of**_

_- I'll flay the skin from their bones - _

_Feel the power rise from within and shape it, give it form, and so what if it happens to look like Sora? It is just a toy and how fitting is it, since Sora is the one who threw them away like so much _

_- _He never did that, never, LIES _- _

_Her white dress is perfect for her and her face is someone else's by right, but the hair fits her and he laughs when she spaces out, says that she must be a natural blonde after all, not a red head like _

_- Rip off that dress and see if she's so pure -_

_I'm not Kairi, she says. She lied and he hates her, but how can he hate her rightfully, when it is his own weakness that brought it all _

_- _Touch her and die, touch ANY of them and _-_

He is doing it wrong.

Riku curses himself and lashes out with raw darkness, the stuff that comes so easily to him now. The memories melt away like cheap watercolor and he is back with **it**, but now they have an audience. The world is filled with fireflies that wobble and blink and glow yellow in the darkness. Heartless.

They come to **it. **They always come to **it.**

"Dance, pretty boy," **it** sneers.

And then there are claws digging into his flesh, little scalpels that cut and dig and pierce to make his red blood flow in rivulets down his pale skin. They are _everywhere!_

Riku shakes and swings them off, but there are always more to take their places. Screaming, Riku calls Soul Reaver to him and lunges for **it**, even as the Heartless dangle off of him like demented Christmas ornaments.

**It** doesn't even dignify Riku by trying to dodge. **It** swipes a hand viper-quick and snatches Soul Reaver away. The Heartless jump off him and Riku is off balance, completely off kilter –

- and **its** arm swings around to crush Riku against a tattooed chest.

"You. Are. _Mine,_" **it** whispers in Riku's ear.

And there is darkness reaching out from the Heartless symbol. It grabs Riku and he feels it pulling him in, back down to that pit of nothingness that bound him the first time around.

There is no Sora to save him this time.

Riku screams and struggles and cries –

_(but why would he cry when all his tears are used up)_

- but he is being pulled back into that horrible place, slowly, inexorably. He cannot break free.

"_Mine,"_ **it** whispers, enraptured at the feeling of mastery.

'_Gottagetloosecan'tgobacknononono' _

'_Don't be afraid Riku.'_

'_SomethingI'mforgettinggottabeplease' _

'_Because you can walk in both worlds.' _

'_Naminésaidsomethingbacktheninthecastleremeberitwhatwasit' _

'_As long as you remember this….'_

'_Almosthaveitsoclose' _

'…_you can walk in the brightest light….'_

'_Iknowthis' _

'…_and never fear the deepest darkness!'_

…Oh.

There was irony for you.

Riku stopped struggling.

**It **stopped laughing.

"I've screwed up," Riku says bluntly.

The little threads of darkness have hauled him in to the knees.

"Only just now seeing it?" **It** laughs.

"I've been doing this all wrong," Riku says, more to himself than **it.**

"What?" **It **senses the change.

To his thighs now.

"All this time, I've been fighting you, pushing you away, every time you said that I was yours…." Riku sighs.

To his ribs.

"And now," **it **whispers, wondering why there is this sudden feeling of power changing hands.

"I thought all along that I was in danger from you, when really…."

And **it** knew.

Riku looked at **it** with eyes that held no fear.

"…_You_ belong to _me."_

To his shoulders and no more.

Riku pulls his hand loose effortlessly and grabs **its** throat.

"You are mine," Riku says.

The darkness bubbling around Riku's shoulders crackles and shifts. Riku's body begins emerging, as **it** slowly vanishes into Riku.

"_Nooooooo!"_ **It** screams.

**It** tries to run, to get away, but **it** may as well be an irritated kitten in the paw of a lion.

"I will eat you," Riku says.

Riku's hips are visible now. **Its **waist has vanished.

"I cannot lock you away, so I will make you part of me."

Screaming, wailing, scratching.

"That's more then you ever would have done for me."

The Heartless were vanishing, their yellow eyes going out like lamps as their master's call faded.

"And if you ever manage to rejoin with Xemnas…."

**It** twists around as **its** ribs vanish on by one into Riku's heart and **it** sees Riku's eyes.

**It** remembers what fear felt like.

Riku stared down at **it** with the most horrible expression of all. Total honesty.

"…pray that I am in a good mood, or I will make you feel every second of agony you ever inflicted upon me returned twice over."

**It** wailed and cursed and shrieked and then long silver hair was disappearing into Riku's breast and then nothing was there at all.

The boy stood in the darkness and the darkness suited him.

----------

_Only one more chapter to go and then the story is done! _

_Next time__ – He will watch from the shadows. They will never see him, never know him, and never find him. But he will be there for them and they will be guarded. _

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	19. Guardian

_Summary:__ During his first attempt to capture Roxas, Riku gets in to a little more trouble then he expected._

_Disclaimer:__ If I owned Kingdom Hearts, do you really think I'd share it with everyone else?_

----------

She has become quite beautiful, Riku thinks.

Kairi is wearing the female uniform for Riku's high school, which he attended once upon a time. A skirt, a tie, a shirt and loafers. Selphie walks with her, and Riku is gladdened beyond words to see that she is all right, but it is Kairi who keeps his eyes.

She is just as she appeared in his dream. Longer hair, fairer face, taller body.

Her laugh is the same.

Riku was setting up guards around the Destiny Islands when she caught his eye. He had made it a point to stay away from the middle school where she had attended, but the fact that a year had passed for _her_ as well somehow skipped his mind and so she walked right past him on the road to the high school.

It was not hard to stay quiet.

It was hard to keep from collapsing and sobbing his eyes out.

She would never recognize him now.

_(He stepped out of his realm and into the Twilight Town safe house. _

_Mickey was there. _

_He knew. Somehow, he knew that it was Riku. _

_Before DiZ, who had been hunting Xehanort's fragments for so long. _

_Before Naminé, who shared a sort-of bond with Riku's heart. _

_They needed him to speak, or to get close enough to feel his heart, before they accepted it was him. _

_Mickey did not. _

"_Oh," said the mouse. _

_It was amazing, truly, how that one little sound could have made Riku struggle not to break down crying and beg for Mickey, for anyone, to just _**_make it all better._**

"_Oh, _**_Riku_**_." _

'_I don't cry anymore.'_

"_Promise you won't tell them," Riku whispers._)

The wards are in place before the day is done.

If a Heartless or Nobody so much as _sneezes_ in the direction of Riku's home world, he will know.

And when he is done he turns towards the main island, his hellfire eyes glowing softly in the dying sunlight.

He knows that he should not….

….But when has that stopped him before?

----------

"_I'll stay." _

"_What?" _

_Riku turns toward Naminé, who sits with her drawing pad in her lap. The white room leeches all the color out of her body. _

"_I won't let Kairi take me back just yet," Naminé says. "If I can't avoid it, then I'll find a way to stay alive inside of her. That way, you won't be alone." _

"_Naminé, I –" _

"_And don't give me that 'I deserve all the misery life throws at me' garbage." The blonde is frowning at him now. _

"_You're my friend, Riku. You and Mickey. I don't have a heart, but I have _**_something_**_, and it's telling me that I shouldn't leave you alone to fade into the dark when this whole mess is over with." _

_She stares down at her dainty feet. _

"_I know you don't want Sora and Kairi seeing you like you are now," Naminé says quietly. "And I know that Mickey would stay with you if he could, but he can't. He has to go back to Minnie soon. I can see him aching for her, and Goofy, and Donald, and all his other friends. The second he has his back turned, I know you'll just vanish again." _

_Riku says nothing. How can he refute the truth? _

"_DiZ… is obsessed. I heard you guys fighting and I know he wants revenge on the Organization more than he wants to help you. So that just leaves me." _

_She looks up at him and her eyes are hard. _

"_I won't let you pull the lone-wolf act again, blockhead. Until you can go home to Destiny Islands, I'll stick to you like glue." _

_And he wonders what he ever did to deserve someone like her watching out for him._

----------

As the mayor's child, Kairi has the biggest room of the three of them. It is just as girly as Riku remembers it.

A pink canopy bed, pink wallpaper, pink lampshade, frilly pink comforter, pink carpet, pink curtains around the bay windows that lead out to Kairi's deck with pink plastic chairs that soak up the sunlight, a pink desk, a pink radio, a pink nightstand, and at this point Riku is looking at his black gloved hand just to remember that another color exists.

He breathes in and smells that strawberry spritz stuff that Kairi likes to spray around her room every morning when she wakes up –

_(Riku wakes gagging and coughing. His eleven year old nose is burning. _

_Opening one tearing eye, he sees a Kairi shaped blur holding out a tissue while his ears hear her apologizing in a steady stream. _

"_-ry guys, I totally forgot you were here and I always do this in the morning and I'm pretty sure it's non-toxic but the bathroom's down the hall and I think maybe you should wash out your eyes just in case-" _

"_Kairi," Sora moans. _

"_Eh?" _

"_REVENGE!" _

_Knowing exactly what his friend means, Riku lunges up at the same time as Sora and they both tackle Kairi to the ground and their fingers, beginning to lengthen from the chubby stubs of children to slender digits, scuttle all across her silken skin and they shriek with laughter, while Kairi shrieks with laughter and outrage that these two boys would _**_dare_**_ tickle their hostess) _

- and he can remember a time when he hated the smell, though he doesn't remember _why_.

He is so careful, so quiet, when he trods across the rose-petal carpet in his heavy boots. He does not know why, but he feels like he has entered a shrine.

A shrine of Kairi.

A shrine of what he had.

Her twin bed is made and immaculate, the small mountain of pillows at its head coming up to Riku's new chest height. Placed at the very base of that mess is Dolly, Kairi's pink stuffed dolphin that Sora won for her on her thirteenth birthday at a carnival.

He wonders why she kept it if she cannot remember Sora.

'…_Well, why shouldn't she have?'_

Even if she did not remember _how_ she got it, it still held a place of love.

Riku carefully sits down on the bed cover –

_("You like _**_foo-foo_**_ girly stuff," Riku says with disgust. _

_Kairi looks up from her homework and gives him a raised eyebrow that is not diminished from its haughtiness by the fact that she is eleven years old. _

"_What?" _

_Sora tugs at the frills on Kairi's bed cover. "It's like you _**_have_**_ to go out of your way to remind everyone who comes in here that you, Kairi, are a girl. And not just any girl, but the girliest, girly girl in all the islands," the brunette says. _

"_So, you like foo-foo stuff," Riku says with triumph. _

_Kairi smirks and goes back to her homework, pulling out the magic ace that every female seems to have over their male counterparts. _

"_That would be _**_so_**_ much more hurtful coming from a boy whose hair wasn't both longer _**_and_**_ prettier than mine." _

_Sora collapses with laughter and Riku kicks at him, wondering how in the _**_hell_**_ she _**_always_**_ manages to beat him.) _

- and jumps off of it like he has been burned.

He is breathing fast now, breathing hard, and he knows that it was a mistake coming here. He goes to leave, but the door knob turns –

(_and he could stay, he could _**_stay_**)

- and Kairi steps into her room, the heavy bag of books dragging her slightly to the right. The redhead sighs and drops them gratefully to the floor.

Riku, _three feet away from her_ and tucked into the corner behind the open door, watches her move and wonders….

'_Hello Kairi.' _

'Hello Princess.'

'_My name is Riku.' _

'My name is Ansem.'

'_Do you remember me?' _

'I remember you well.'

'_We were friends, once.' _

'Your heart showed me the light.'

'_You, me, and Sora.' _

'And that wretched Keyblade Master sent me back to the dark.'

'_Do you miss us?' _

'Your friend Riku is gone forever.'

'_Will you ask me to take you to him?' _

'He belongs to the dark.'

'_Will you still want me around, after you hear of what I've done?' _

'So don't look for him.'

A thousand possibilities in a single moment.

Kairi stiffens and whirls around and sees….

…Nothing.

She blinks, puzzled at why she suddenly feels as though she has missed something vital.

"Hello?"

----------

"_I don't think he'll be happy with your decision, Riku." _

_Mickey looks at him warningly, trying to get through to the broken boy in front of him. _

"_It isn't his decision to make," Riku says. _

"_He won't stop looking for you just because I don't tell him where you are," Mickey says. _

"_No, but it will keep him from finding me. As long as I look like this," Riku gestures to his new face, his new body, his new cage, "_**_Riku_**_ will never be found by him. All he'll see is Ansem." _

_Mickey gives him a sly grin. "You realize you are severely underestimating him. I think it won't take long for him to figure it out once he gets enough of the puzzle pieces." _

_Riku glares fire and brimstone at the mouse. _

_Mickey sighs and gives in. "But none of them will come from me." _

----------

Riku _twists_ and comes out of the dark.

Sora's pod is in front of him and he sits down where he is.

Sora is looking better every day. He moves and twitches in his sleep now. Naminé says that it is because his brain is being revved up.

Not literally, of course, but the look she gave him suggested that it was the best she could do towards dumbing the full explanation down to Riku's level of thinking.

'If all goes well, he'll be up in a week,' Naminé had said.

That was six days ago.

"Hey Sora," Riku says.

"I think this is the last time I'll get to talk with you like this."

The only benefit this brings Riku is that Sora has become a _very_ good listener.

"Kairi's grown up, same as you and me. Unlike you and me, she still has her body and she hasn't been wearing the same clothes for a year. I _really_ hope you take a shower as soon as you get out, otherwise the Heartless will find you by your smell alone. Oh, and change your underwear, if nothing else. Seriously.

"Well, I've managed to set up some decent alarms around Destiny Islands. If anything starts sniffing around, I'll know real quick. I'll keep an eye on Kairi, so you go do your hero thing. As for the bad guys…

"Definitely watch out for Axel and Xemnas. Axel's pretty crazy about getting Roxas back. I've already had to chase him out of the fake Twilight Town a few times. He might act like some street punk, but he's dangerous Sora. Don't screw around with him and _don't_ let pity affect your decisions. Axel might have lost his friend, but he's still a pyromaniacal sociopath.

"Xemnas, if anything, is even worse. He's gonna try to get you to open Kingdom Hearts. I'll do the best I can to guard your back, but he's a schemer. Make your choices carefully where he's concerned. Oh, and definitely watch out for Saïx. He's Xemnas' watchdog and I give you my solemn oath that he's a bona fide lunatic.

"Don't let Goofy and Donald leave you again if another Keyblade master shows up. Chain them to your legs if you have too, but you need all the help you can get with the Organization. I think I can get Mickey to make them swear their allegiance to you, if that helps. …Well, maybe."

Riku has shed all his tears and laughter and fear and rage in this room long ago.

There is nothing left to say.

Nothing that Sora would not already understand.

----------

_"They must be destroyed!" _

_DiZ is raging, the cape and the long ends of his mask flaring out with each violent gesture. Riku, leaning against the wall, is cold and silent. _

_"I won't let you use Sora against Organization XIII. He isn't your tool," Riku says. _

_"Do you honestly think they will leave him alone?! Him, the only one who can give Xemnas access to Kingdom Hearts?!" _

_"There's a difference between them coming after Sora and you just throwing Sora into the battle like a missile. He will beat them eventually, I know that, but it won't be soon. He's been weakened after spending so much time in that pod. He has to build his strength back up from the beginning, and he won't have a chance to do that if you point every bad guy in the universe at him as soon as he leaves this world." _

_It is logical._

_It is the truth._

_DiZ seethes._

_"Get out," DiZ hisses. _

_Riku does not argue. _

_He knows that tone, mostly because he has used it several times before._

_He turns his back on the man who has been the closest thing to a father in the past chaotic year, and inside he is screaming 'I'm not betraying you!' and 'I'm not _**_him_**_!' and 'You're my friend, but so is he!'_

_But he says nothing, because nothing can be said. _

_That was how Riku learned what it felt like for Sora the day he stole the Keyblade._

----------

His hood is up.

His presence is hidden.

Soul Reaver is at his side.

Sora and Goofy and Donald are traipsing past him and exploring the courtyard the mansion opens out into. They are experimenting with their abilities, testing their new limits. Sora pouts when he fails to cast Thundaga. His shorts are now inches above his knees and his voice is deeper. He moves awkwardly in his new fifteen year old body.

But it is Sora.

Alive.

Awake.

"Come _ooooooooooooooooooooooon,_ you guys! Let's go!"

...And as impatient as ever.

_'Heh.'_

He could go to him. Sora wouldn't care if he looked different -

(_he thinks_)

- or if he had endangered Sora and Kairi by taking Roxas -

(_he hopes_).

It would be so easy...

Sora stumbles and turns, feeling something just brush the edge of his senses.

Except for Donald and Goofy, the courtyard is empty.

"Sowa, whazza matter?"

Sora tilts his head, not quite sure why he feels like he should go back.

"Uh... Nothing, guys."

----------

He has chosen.

They will never see him, never know him, and never find him.

But he will be there for them this time around and they will be protected.

Always.

----------

_Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_

Who guards the guardians?

----------

_THIS STORY IS DONE! _

_Thanks be to you, all my reviewers, for support and (in the case of one die-hard fan) a lot of graves for me to dig, because she died of heart failure in most of her reviews._

_HAPPY RIKU WATCHING!_

Edited – February 9th, 2008.


	20. BONUS!

_In celebration of my 100__th__ review for __Just A Nobody__ I've decided to tack on one more semi-chapter to it. _

_Let the final bit of Riku goodness begin…. _

* * *

Just A Nobody – The Soundtrack 

Impulsive – Fate of the Unknown, KH 2 Final Mix soundtrack.

III – Silence, Shadow of the Colossus Original Soundtrack.

Oblivion – Requiem for the Lost Ones, Bleach Soundtrack 1.

IX – Descendant of a Shinobi, Final Fantasy 7 Soundtrack.

Muffins – I'm Going Slightly Mad, by Queen.

VIII – Beethoven's 5th Symphony, by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Blood – The Hate In Me, by Godhead.

VII – Somebody's Watching Me, by Beatfreakz.

Kairi – Aerith's Theme, Advent Children Soundtrack.

II – Practice Ditching Susano-O, Okami Soundtrack.

Wonder – Set You At Ease, Dino Crisis Soundtrack.

X – Sharp Dressed Man, by ZZ Top.

Prayer – Bounce-O-Rama, Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack.

I – Dance With the Devil, by Breaking Benjamin.

Choices – Close Every Door to Me, by Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.

XIII – On the Precipice of Defeat, Bleach Soundtrack 1.

Escape – The 13th Struggle, Kingdom Hearts 2 Soundtrack.

Heartless – Destiny's Force, Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack.

Guardian – In Memoriam - Light's Theme, Death Note Soundtrack.

_Yes, I used a lot of Kingdom Hearts songs. Really though, why throw away something because it fits so well?_

* * *

Status of Just A Nobody as of February 9th, 2008.

Words – 31886.

Reviews – 100. Yay.

28 Favs. And 24 alerts.

Hits: 10,437.

_Chapter 16 seems to be the most popular, shortly followed by chapter 3._

* * *

_….Are we rolling?_

_Okay, good. _

_Ahem. So, Riku, what did – _

_Riku: Shush! Not so loud! _

- The boy wonder looks like he is about to refuse an explanation, but sighs and relents, his gorgeous head drooping in shame. –

_Riku: It's the fangirls. They keep finding me somehow, and it seems like the mere mentioning of my name alerts them._

_Ah, my apologies. So then… Ridsha. What made you decide to take up the lead role in this production? _

_Riku: Honestly? I was kind of sick of always playing second fiddle to Sora. Don't get me wrong, the guy __**is**__ my best friend, but I needed some __**me**__ time, you know? Being imprisoned in a castle full of emotionless sociopaths seemed like a good way to get some alone time and work out my thoughts. _

…_I…see…. _

_Riku: Ha ha ha, got you. You really believed that? Heck no, I'm not that crazy. No, the real reason was Random One-Shot offered me a real good paycheck. I have bills and the Kingdom Hearts figurines only rake in so much, you know? Once all the money gets split between me and other characters, there isn't much more than what I need for my living costs. I've been wanting to take a vacation, see the world and all that, and now that I'm through with this story, I finally can. _

_Interesting. So, where were you thinking of heading? _

- Riku grins. –

_Riku: I want to…. _

- He seems to remember that this conversation is being recorded. –

_Riku: Actually, I probably shouldn't say it out loud. Fangirls, you understand. _

_-_ The interviewer nods understandingly.-

_'Damn it, he's on to me.'_

_All right, then may I ask you a personal question? _

_Riku: Shoot. _

_Is there any romance brewing between you and one of the female stars of Kingdom Hearts? _

_Riku: GAH! What is with that question?! It seems like I've been paired with everyone under the sun and yet people still want more! THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH OF ME TO GO AROUND! _

…………

- Riku is breathing heavily, and then calms himself. –

_Riku: I'm sorry. The answer to that is my business alone. If word got out that I was seeing someone, and I'm not saying that I am, she'd either be killed by fangirls or aided by fangirls. Really, I'm not sure which one would be scarier._

_It's that bad? _

_Riku: You haven't the slightest clue. I have to put a combination lock on my underwear drawer. MY UNDERWEAR! The one time I went traveling without a secure travel bag, someone looted all my socks when I wasn't looking. Two weeks later, I found out that they had sold on Ebay for $7,600.00 a piece._

_Wow. _

_Riku: I know. _

_Only $7,600.00? _

- Riku glares at the interviewer, and then, slowly, his look changes to one of horror. -

_Riku: Oh God, no. You're one of __**them!**_

_Well, my cover is blown. _

_Riku: AUGH! _

- Riku attempts to run and finds the only door securely locked. -

_Now Riku, don't be difficult. No one knows where you are, and I have the only key. I just want a simple favor and then you can go. _

_Riku: Liar! _

- The door suddenly bursts open and smacks Riku to the floor. Xigbar sees Riku and hauls him up to his feet. -

_Xigbar: Go man, go! Donald and Goofy are waitin' to escort you outside, but you gotta be fast. There's a freakin' HORDE of those crazy chicks comin' here, fast! _

- Riku runs. -

_Donald and Goofy? _

_Xigbar: They're the only ones he stands no chance of being paired with. _

_Ah, I see. I'll have to stop him before he reaches safety then. _

_Xigbar: Not gonna happen, lady. _

_So, you would stand between me and my object of devotion? Most unwise, Xigbar. _

_Xigbar: -_Laughs-_ Lady, I'm number II in Organization XIII! What can you… AUGH!_

_

* * *

_

- the moral of this short story - 

_- never get between a fangirl and her idol, as bad things will happen -_

* * *

The claymore swings up and a torrent of wind rushes at the teenager. With a bum leg Riku cannot brace his feet to the ground and he is lifted up and pushed away. For one blissful moment there is no gravity. Then Riku hits the ground rolling on his ribs and the air is out of his lungs before he can even scream. He comes to a stop near one of the many empty shops lining the plaza and does not move. He can barely breathe. 

'_I remember now. Saïx, the Luna Diviner. There are eight members of Organization XIII left and I get the fucking psychopath to haul me back from an escape attempt.' _

Riku sits up and gets one brief glimpse of a wild face above a black coat before Saïx's booted foot completely misses its target as Riku throws himself to the side. Unbalanced, the Luna Diviner falls back and lands hard on the concrete. He is semi-dazed until his claymore lands on his face, which finishes the process of knocking him out.

Riku blinks.

"Um… medic."

* * *

Riku spits out something that may or may not be a bone fragment. "You guys have rats?" 

Demyx nods. "Yeah, for a few years now. I think they got here when a gummi ship crashed and they were hitching a ride. Anyway, they started breeding and now they almost outnumber the Nobodies. Vexen used to catch them and use them in his experiments."

- Until he died anyway…. -

_- Huh. I always figured him for more of a gerbil man -_

- You can actually have a preference for rodent lab subjects? -

_- Certainly. Gerbils have a higher shock tolerance and more lung capacity then the average lab rat -­_

- ….Do I want to know how you know that? -

_- Of course you do! Also, weasel intestines, when dried, make wonderful guitar strings! –_

- Didn't need to know that -

_- Sparrows can be fired from an air gun with an expected air-speed velocity of 130 kmph -_

- Didn't _want_ to know that -

_- And the taste of sewer rat is indistinguishable from that of lamb when seasoned with ginger! -_

- Dude, _sick! - _

* * *

"Oh, _Kairi_." 

"…_What?!"_

Riku looks away from the high-intensity lights and sees Naminé, Mickey, and DiZ staring at him. Naminé is crying.

"I come here," Naminé sobs, "expecting a simple 'thank you for saving my life Naminé', but what do I get upon waking you up? You said _her _name!"

The blonde runs off, sobbing.

Mickey sighs and hops up onto the autopsy table. Riku suddenly realizes he is completely naked.

"Now Riku," Mickey says. "You should talk with Naminé after this and let her know that it can't go on."

Riku blinks. "What 'can't go on'?"

Mickey gives him A Look. "I know what a young boy is dreaming of when he wakes up and says a girl's name all breathless like that. I won't blame you for your subconscious, but for Naminé's sake, you should – "

_"__I was not having that kind of dream!"_

_

* * *

_

- and finally, a lot of you responded to the Xemnas chapter hoping that I would break Riku into teeny, tiny pieces. It didn't happen in the actual story, but this part here is for you -

* * *

Ten Days

* * *

He could not do it. 

It was a year ago, but the memories of Sora's blood and Kairi's lifeless body and all the _darkness_, everywhere, all across the universe, were still fresh in his mind. Riku could not bring that back. If Xemnas wanted Sora to open Kingdom Hearts, then, one or another, he would _get_ Sora to open Kingdom Hearts. And all those hearts that were not the Nobodies' would be drifting loose to be transformed back into Heartless.

And that cannot be allowed to happen.

--- --- --- --- ---

fear drives the boy now

--- --- --- --- ---

Riku dives.

The darkness is painful. It has been so long since he was this weak in the dark that he has forgotten how hard it is to control the corridors when you have so little power. The floor that isn't there bucks beneath him and he staggers, swaying and fighting to keep his balance.

The parasite in his heart is awakening. The realm of darkness is recharging it like sunlight to a flower. Riku knows he does not have much time, but he is so _tired_ and he just wants to rip open a hole to somewhere warm and dry, and sleep for a year. His thoughts are blurring and becoming slurry in his mind.

He does not even see Xemnas until he bangs into a black-coated chest and feels two strong hands latch onto his shoulders.

"You have made the wrong choice," Xemnas says.

--- --- --- --- ---

his situation alters

--- --- --- --- ---

In a matter of minutes, Riku's whole world narrows down to three simple objectives:

Do not give in to the darkness.

Do not tell them where Sora is.

Do not scream.

--- --- --- --- ---

the third objective is lost in an hour

--- --- --- --- ---

His blood reeks. His clothes are stained with it beyond repair and, through the pain and the screaming and the '_don't tell'_ and the fear, Riku wonders what Naminé would say about his state of dress.

_'She'd scream, you stupid loser,'_ comes the answer.

Hands knot into his hair, which has been chopped short to a bare inch of silver scruff. His head is raised from the floor and he sees Xigbar's cold, lonely eye staring at him.

"Just give up," Xigbar says with an easiness that belies how many times this has happened before. Or is it that he just does not care?

_'No heart. Not Heartless, but no heart.'_

"Tell Superior what he wants to know and you can die. Heck, maybe you can even leave. Superior promises not to turn you if you tell."

'_Tattletale, tattletale, __**I am not--!**__'_

Riku spits at Xigbar's feet.

"Your choice, man."

--- --- --- --- ---

on the first day he does not break.

--- --- --- --- ---

Axel is better than Xigbar, in a way.

Xigbar is cold and impersonal. His treatment makes Riku feel like he is not human, like he is not something of consequence.

Axel hates Riku, as much as a Nobody can hate, and this makes Riku remember that he has some power.

The fire burns and the chakrams puncture and the kicks break his bones and the Hi-Potions undo all the damage so it can start again, but Riku gets through it.

Axel reminds him of what he has to lose.

--- --- --- --- ---

on the second day he does not break

--- --- --- --- ---

Saïx is not allowed near him alone.

When the Luna Diviner comes, Luxord is with him, ready to restrain the berserker if his bloodlust gets the better of him.

The claymore is gone, but Saïx works just fine with his fists. Breaking, cracking, shattering, grinding Riku down to nothing but calcium dust inside of a meat suit. Riku spits out more teeth than he thought he had. A Hi-Potion is shoved between his lips and forced down his throat. The tingling feeling restores his body to some degree of wholeness.

Riku can now count down the seconds it takes for him to heal.

One – vial in mouth.

Two – liquid down throat.

Three – bones rearrange.

Four – bones rearrange.

Five – muscles regrow.

Six – headache clears.

Seven – Saïx comes back.

As Luxord leaves, Saïx stumbling along ahead of him with blood on his knuckles, he looks down at Riku and says, "Try not to crack for another two days. Xigbar and I have a bet, you see."

--- --- --- --- ---

on the third day he does not break

--- --- --- --- ---

Xaldin is patient.

There is no injury inflicted.

No, he is a more passive sort.

Binding Riku's arms behind his back, forearms crossed over each other, and then sliding a lance through the gap between spine and arms. Xaldin sends the pointed tip of the lance deep into the wall.

And then he waits.

Riku stands, feeling his already weakened legs slowly grow numb. Each time he stumbles and falls, his arms are forced to the point of dislocation bearing his weight. It is horrible, knowing that the only thing bringing him pain is his inability to stand on his own two feet.

It is humiliating.

--- --- --- --- ---

on the fourth day a crack appears

--- --- --- --- ---

Demyx hurts.

Not the body, no. Riku's body is tough. It can endure.

What Demyx hurts is Riku's cracked, throbbing, ripped up heart.

He sings of sunlight and green fields and clear water and laughter and friendship and happiness and a cool breeze and _freedom_.

He leaves a pan of pure, icy cold water beyond the bars of the cell and just out of reach of Riku's parched fingertips.

He leaves and Riku finds that he cannot remember what the sunlight felt like.

--- --- --- --- ---

on the fifth day the crack widens

--- --- --- --- ---

Roxas does nothing but stare at him.

That works just fine.

--- --- --- --- ---

on the sixth day the crack deepens

--- --- --- --- ---

"This can end. Just tell me where he is."

Xemnas stares at Riku from beyond the cell bars. Riku is on his side.

There are no mirrors in his prison, and he is glad for it. His hair, which he was so proud of, has now been chopped off, burned away, and ripped out, according to who had him at what time. His is covered in dried blood. _His_ blood. He is fed and watered only enough to keep him alive and never satisfied. His ribs and hips are beginning to stick out sharply. His clothes are shredded, what few articles he is allowed to keep.

He wonders if his friends would recognize him now.

Unlikely.

"What is he to you that you would suffer for him like this? A friend? You can make new friends. The Keyblade master? There is more than one."

Riku is not listening.

"This will continue for as long as necessary, Riku. Do you think we don't know how to keep a person alive for weeks? Months? You are wrong. This is not the first time someone has proven to be stubborn. I will get what I want, Riku. I always do."

Not listening.

Xemnas is leaving.

"If you think you are unbreakable…."

Not listening.

"…Ask Saïx how I cured him of that awful temper of his."

'_Not. Listening.'_

--- --- --- --- ---

on the seventh day the crack spreads

--- --- --- --- ---

_'I hate Sora, I hate him for putting me through this, I hate him.'_

'_It isn't his fault! You chose this because he needs to be hidden. If they got a hold of him – ' _

'_Fuck the universe! I. Don't. __**Care**__. About. The. Universe.' _

'_Kairi would get hurt again, do you want that? Mickey would get hurt and DiZ.' _

'_Hatethemhatethemhatethemhatethem.' _

'_No, I don't.'_

'_Yes, I do.' _

'_They're your friends.' _

'_I want this to stop. I want this to… to just…' _

'_It is necessary.' _

'_NO IT ISN'T! _

'_Be a man! __**I don't take the easy way**__, remember?' _

'_Fuck the promise.' _

'_They. Will. Kill. You. The moment you tell them, you are useless to Organization XIII.' _

'_Good.'_

--- --- --- --- ---

on the eighth day the second objective is lost

--- --- --- --- ---

The part of Riku that is still Riku, tried and true, notes with some smug satisfaction that the expression on Xemnas' face means that Sora is not at the Twilight Town safe house.

Part of Riku had always known that he would break. That part of Riku had gone from 'don't break' to 'hold out long enough for the others to get away'. DiZ is not stupid. Riku not returning means Roxas was not retrieved. It means that Riku could be the one in a cage. Only a stupid man stays in an unsecured location.

And DiZ is _not_ stupid.

Now Xemnas will never find Sora.

The broken bits and pieces of Riku that are no longer the confident, penitent young man start screaming in terror and pain as Xemnas begins collecting his consolation prize.

--- --- --- --- ---

on the ninth day there is only one thing left to him

--- --- --- --- ---

The last thing – _don't give in to the darkness_ – is being lost.

Riku is turning into something not Riku. Something bestial and cringing and afraid and willing to do _anything_ to make the pain stop, to make the horrible not-people who have become his whole universe, his gods and his demons, leave him alone for just a few more minutes.

The spark that is his heart is being drowned in inky, grasping black.

And there is something _with_ that spark, greedily trying to devour it and take its place.

And Riku – who has to verbally remind himself over and over again what it was like to be taken over the first time – does not want that thing coming back.

Riku dives.

**It** is waiting for him.

"For the last time," one of them says.

There is a struggle.

There is a victory.

When the boy opens his eyes and sees Xemnas reaching for him with darkness smoking off of his hands, the last thing Riku of Destiny Islands thinks is '_could he feel when I killed __**i**__–'_

--- --- --- --- ---

on the tenth day he has failed in everything

--- --- --- --- ---

The Nobody breathes.

There are others around it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The number seems important.

The memories rush in.

It remembers who it is. Or rather, who it _was_.

One of the others bends down in front of the Nobody. From another life, the newborn creature remembers someone to fear and hate.

"Welcome to unlife, Kurix," says Xemnas.

--- --- --- --- ---

_I could not inflict that on poor Riku in the actual plot. In a bonus chapter, however…._

_Riku, forgive me. _

_Again, thanks be to all liked this story. _

_There won't be any more updates to this fic – ever – past this point, so enjoy this last treat. _

_Ciao!_


End file.
